Pavor Nocturnus
by BadWolfFile
Summary: An idea I've had floating around in my head... Isolde O'Connor, part of a special all-female COG Gear squad, having both night and day troubles. Inspired by my own Pavor Nocturnus. Rated T for language and naughty implications. Don't forget to R&R!
1. Prologue: Pavor Nocturnus

_Isolde 'Chaos' O'Connor couldn't remember how old she was the first time she had the Pavor Nocturnus. The half-sleeping, half-waking state had scared her: she must have been very young. Perhaps it was the paralytic part… the part where you couldn't move a muscle, no matter how hard you tried.  
_

Her shrieks woke the doctor on call, who was immediately ashamed that he'd dozed off. But there were so many and he was so tired… he quickly rose with a groan and rushed over to the COG Gear who was lying in her bed screaming and crying, not moving a single muscle. He just stared at her for a moment: what the hell was going on? Usually when soldiers had nightmares they thrashed around and woke themselves quickly. He shook her shoulder, trying to wake her, but she continued to groan and cry. The other patients in the ward started to wake up, adding their own groans of pain and misery to the cacophony, and the doctor scowled. He shook her shoulder harder, noticing that her skin was clammy to the touch, and she was sweating profusely.

Suddenly she stopped in mid-scream, the horrible sound cut off as abruptly as though someone had flicked a switch. She relaxed into normal sleep, and the doctor just stared at her. The groans and cursing from the other patients drew his attention away from this strange female COG who had obviously just had some kind of seizure, and he rushed off to attend to them, the female COG pushed into the back of his mind for the time being as he tried to do the best he could to soothe the many wounded.


	2. Chapter 1: Brokenarmed blues

When Sergeant Isolde O'Connor stumbled out from the hospital a few days later, her broken right arm in a sling, she was surprised to find her squad waiting for her. Her best friend looked up from where she was lounging.

"Isolde… so they didn't cut you up for lunch meat after all."

The massively muscular Harmony Johnson joked with a smile, clapping a hand on Isolde's shoulder. Isolde managed a weak grin in reply.

"Nope. Couldn't get their knives through my thick skin. Said I was too small and skinny to eat anyway, not enough meat on me."

Harmony laughed. "Good to have you back."

The rest of the squad gathered around her and Isolde looked them all over as she silently counted them off: Alice, Claire, Megan… everyone was there.

"I'm amazed you all came… I mean, don't you have work to do?"

Harmony was about to reply when a young helmeted COG Gear ran up to them.

"Ma'am!" He saluted crisply.

"What is it, soldier?" Isolde immediately stepped forwards and eyeballed him.

"HQ requested that I fetch you the moment you were released from hospital… they have an important mission for you and Alpha F."

Isolde scowled and flexed the hand on her broken arm.

"What, already? Fuck, kid. I'm all fucked up, my squad isn't much better, and those bastards want to throw us into the lion's mouth again?"

Harmony put a cautionary hand on her friend's shoulder.

"Easy, Sergeant… the boy's only doing his job."

The young Gear had backed away a step, away from this crazy woman who looked like she was going to explode.

After a moment Isolde managed to collect herself and blinked at the boy.

"Stop backing away, kid, and run and tell those fuckers at HQ that we're on our way."

The young man saluted quickly and ran, ran from the imposing all-female squad. The women looked at each other and just laughed.

The all female squad entered HQ in a highly dramatic way. Isolde snapped a somewhat sloppy left-handed salute to the man bent over a map.

"Sir…"

He looked up and blinked at Isolde's broken arm.

"I was told that you'd made a full recovery, Sergeant."

She looked down briefly at the plastered arm and shrugged indifferently.

"I can still handle a weapon, sir. My left hand is almost as good as my right."

The man nodded absently and returned to his map.

"Sergeant, the higher-ups wanted me to inform you that you and your girls will be going in today. We've got a small town under Locust control that's just too close to Jacinto for comfort, and we need you to clean it out."

Isolde exchanged glances with Harmony, who was scowling. "There might be some Stranded living there, and we need you girls to get them out."

Isolde felt anger surge through her, and let her mouth run away with her again.

"Sir, what the fuck? We all got beat up badly in our last mission, and we were promised that we could sit the next one out. And now, on top of it, you want us to mollycoddle a bunch of sick and dying civilians?"

The captain scowled at her.

"If you don't like it, O'Connor, then you complain to someone who cares. I don't have the time or resources to validate the existence of someone who, frankly, has been a pain in my ass from day one when her sorry carcass arrived for NOT FOLLOWING PROTOCOL!"

The captain, obviously venting his frustration, had stepped forwards and was standing very, very close to Isolde and staring her in the eyes.

She wiped away the spit on her face and stared him down.

"I'm sorry, _sir_, if you don't like the way I do things. But you can't argue with the results."

The captain stepped back and turned to his map again. "No, I can't."

He took a few deep, calming breaths and pointed to the map.

"The town is here… it's a hot-zone, so we can't drop you directly. Instead, we'll be dropping you here."

He pointed to a spot maybe three kilometres from the town.

"Once you have the civilians in hand, take them to the LZ. The nearest possible LZ for that many choppers is here…"

He moved his finger to a wide open space about five kilometres. Isolde stared at it, feeling her stomach clench.

"There'll be a chopper waiting outside… get the supplies you need and head out, Alpha F. Dismissed."

Isolde balled her fists, her eyes burning into the back of the captain's head, but Harmony grabbed her and together with Alice and Claire managed to restrain their headstrong leader. Meg had managed to stay out of it, as usual, Isolde noted bitterly.

The women were preparing to leave when the young COG Isolde had scared earlier ran up again.

"Sergeant… I've been told to inform you that you've got a new rookie teammate."

The boy had wisely stayed out of Isolde's reach, because she turned on him.

"WHAT?"

The boy backed away as Harmony and Alice grabbed Isolde to stop her wringing the boy's neck.

"They'll… Uhh… they'll be here in a few minutes."

He saluted quickly and ran again, and the other women let Isolde go. She hunkered down where she was and put her head in her hands. Concerned, Harmony asked her "You ok?"

Isolde shook her head quickly.

"They make us go out when we're all fucked up to a boiling hot zone where all of us are likely to get killed… they make us look after Stranded… and on top of it…"

she suddenly stood with a burst of energy and punched the side of the Raven helicopter with her good hand while screaming

"THEY LAND ME WITH A FUCKING ROOKIE?" she leaned her forehead against the cool metal of the helicopter, taking deep breaths as Harmony patted her back and murmured soothingly.

"Heh… I guess the 'fucking rookie' would be me…"

Isolde turned and blinked at the new voice, her face skewing into a confused look as she stared at the young man in front of them.

"Uhh… kid? This is Alpha F… 'F' stands for Female."

Her words just made him smile good-naturedly. "I know. But the captain thought it would be good experience for me to fight with you ladies, considering I'm the chairman's son."

Isolde felt this added responsibility like a ton of bricks falling on her, and she had to hunker down again with a hand to her head or risk passing out.

"You're… the chairman's kid?"

She squinted up at him, taking in a moderately handsome face, curly black hair, blue eyes and an easy smile. The kid looked like he was about twelve, but the dark stubble on his chin hinted at many more years under his belt.

Isolde stood with a groan as Harmony asked "how old are you, son?"

He smiled at her as he replied "seventeen."

Isolde ran her left hand over her face in exasperation.

"You're still a little boy. Got a name, kid?"

He nodded quickly and held out his hand.

"Adam Prescott."

Isolde glanced down at his hand for a long moment, and then Harmony pushed her shoulder insistently with one finger. Isolde shook the boy's hand.

"Sergeant Isolde O'Connor… now your daddy _does_ know that there's a huge chance that you're gonna get beat up and killed, yeah?"

Adam nodded.

"He understands. He thought it would be good practise for me."

Isolde sighed, and nodded to the other women as they climbed into the chopper.

"Get on board and hold onto something, kid… this is likely to be a bumpy ride."


	3. Chapter 2: A Bumpy Ride

As the landscape flew by below them, Adam Prescott looked over at his new squad mates in curiosity. His eyes fixated on each of them, taking mental note of their physical characteristics.

One of them, who'd been introduced as Alice, was very slender for a Gear with short mousy brown hair and deep brown eyes. She looked far more suited to information relay than to field work, but the confident way she held her Lancer spoke of strength that was hidden by her slim frame.

The one who'd been introduced as Megan was a stunning raven-haired, black-eyed beauty who'd somehow found the time to do her makeup and nails, and Adam couldn't help but let his eyes be drawn to her. Claire was very short with long straight blonde hair that was tied up in a neat pony tail, and she kept fingering the handle of an antique pistol at her waist as she stared out at the rushing land below.

But the two that were of most interest to Adam were Harmony and the Sergeant: Harmony was definitely an older woman, her rich chestnut hair shot with silvery gray tendrils and her handsome face lined and weather-beaten.

She was the mother of the squad and Adam immediately identified her with his own grandmother. The modified .85 calibre shotgun in her hands reminded the boy even more of "Gammy", who was known to chase off poachers with just such a weapon.

Finally, Adam's eyes roamed to the sergeant. She was sitting staring at the floor scratching under the cast on her arm with what appeared to be a fork, every so often making a face. Her hair was bright red, or at least it would have been if it had been long: the sergeant had shaved her head into a crew-cut style that really didn't suit her. The short fuzz that did enshroud her head made her look like her head was on fire, and her bright green eyes were penetrating.

As Isolde dug under the itchy cast with the fork she wondered how the hell she was going to get out of this alive. Last time it'd been pure luck that her last pistol round had driven itself into the eye of the Locust that had broken her arm, killing it instantly and allowing her to get away.

She was sure that the Goddess of Luck wasn't going to smile on her again so soon.

"Well I'll just have to use my skills then."

She hadn't even been aware that she'd said it out loud until Harmony glanced over and asked "what?"

Isolde shook herself and shrugged. "Just saying that I'll have to use all my skills to beat your score this time, old woman."

Harmony laughed.

"I don't think so. No one beats my score, especially not when I'm armed with my baby."

The bantering between the two women died down eventually, and all their thoughts turned inwards.

Suddenly there was an odd whistling noise.

"Mortar!"

Isolde was instantly on her feet, her fork folded and put away in the blink of an eye as she grabbed hold of a handle sunk into the metal above her head. The other squad members scrambled and did the same, and the mortar whistled by so close that the Raven spun around a little from the slipstream.

Adam was nearly jolted out of the Raven, but Isolde grabbed him and hauled him back in growling "hold on tighter next time. I_ don't_ want to have to scrape your sorry ass off the ground and bring you home to your daddy as gloop in a matchbox!" Adam nodded and hung on grimly, his heart pounding.

Isolde kept tight hold of the rim of his Gear armour as more mortars shook the evasively-manoeuvring Raven to keep him in place, and he noticed how pretty her hands would be if she bothered to wash off some of the dirt and engine grease and let her nails grow.

His eyes travelled up her arm to her face: she was looking away from him, but he could see the outline of a graceful jaw and a nose that was (surprisingly) straight after years of combat. Her skin, where it was clean, was a kind of chalky paleness that Adam knew would be silky smooth if allowed to be. He was jolted from his close examination of the sergeant by a particularly bad explosion as the female Gears slid about the hold of the Raven and all scrambled to regain their feet before they fell out.

Thankfully they were able to land a few moments later, Isolde leading the charge crouched over to avoid being beheaded by the Raven's rotor blades. Once they'd disembarked and moved to the minimum safe distance, the Raven took off again. Isolde turned her back immediately on the departing machine and told her squad

"Keep your eyes peeled, ladies and gentleman… we're gonna be walking along a very exposed and dangerous track, and I don't wanna have to high-tail it."

She walked off towards an opening in the trees, and the squad followed her casting their eyes around somewhat apprehensively.


	4. Chapter 3: Nothin' but Trouble

Sergeant O'Connor walked along the path, her eyes slowly roving from side to side. Behind her, her Gear squad also walked quietly: the sergeant could sense their tension. The woman smiled a little, her mind threatening to wander off on a tangent, but she hauled it back angrily and focused on getting through the thick bushland without springing a Locust trap.

A tiny flicker of movement ahead made her freeze, her heart beating slightly faster. She held up a hand and peered at the place, hearing Harmony move up beside her.

"Sarge?"

Isolde shook her head and signalled _"movement ahead. Possible ambush."_

Harmony also peered further ahead as Isolde looked around, knowing that an ambush would try to distract them and make them focus on one point, but there were no other signs at all. Harmony thumbed the safety of her shotgun and moved ahead to investigate, her head swinging from side to side. She reached the spot and froze, and for a heart-stopping second Isolde thought she'd been shot.

"Sarge!"

Harmony called over her shoulder, and Isolde came up next to her. Together they stared down the drainpipe, through the bars, at the tiny kitten stuck there.

"What the fuck?"

The soft comment was out of Isolde's lips before she could stop it and the kitten turned to stare at her. Harmony shrugged.

"Just leave it, Isolde. It'll probably just die anyway."

Isolde ignored her and slid down the slight incline to the drain. The kitten mewed pitifully, its eyes huge.

"How did you get in there, little one?"

her voice was soft and soothing, and the cat limped forwards. She put her arm through the bars and took hold of the animal by the scruff of its neck. It relaxed until it was completely limp, and she pulled it out.

"Isolde… it's only going to cause you trouble!"

Harmony called down to her, and the sergeant examined the kitten.

The animal was tiny, with huge saucer eyes and satellite ears. It was filthy, with its medium length fur matted and tangled, and a wound on its leg was starting to become infected.

"You stink, cat."

Isolde carried the animal up the slope and Harmony shook her head.

"No, Isolde… it'll be nothing but trouble!"

Isolde shrugged.

"I've dealt with trouble before. It'll be fine."

Harmony shook her head, but knew better than to argue the point with her stubborn sergeant.

The cat rode like a queen on the rim of Isolde's armour. The tiny animal was purring loudly, making the armour vibrate alarmingly. It was a reassuring hum that faded into the background as Isolde tuned it out to better listen to the noises of the forest: the rustling of the branches in the wind, the heavy tramp of her soldier's booted feet, the wind softly whispering 'hostiles' as it whistled through the trees…

The sergeant mentally backed up and considered that last thought for only a second before it clicked. She tapped Harmony on the shoulder and motioned _"Enemy"_. The older woman nodded, thumbing the safety off her gun again, and the word went down the line.

They walked as silently as heavy metal plate armour would allow, their eyes flicking from side to side and their ears trying to discern the sounds of an enemy from the sounds of the nearly silent forest. Even the kitten had stopped purring, its nose quivering and its ears swivelling as it too tried to detect the location of the enemy.

Suddenly something glinted back in the woods and Isolde, not wasting any time thinking, fired on it. There was a strained roar as something was splatted, and suddenly the woods on one side were swarming with Locust.

"TAKE COVER!"

Isolde roared as she obeyed her own order, leaping behind the relative cover of a rock. She glanced quickly at her squad to make sure they were all still alive: they were, and she allowed her mind to be wiped clean of thought as she waited for the next pale head to pop out of cover quickly before pulling the trigger and blowing the monster's brains out.

Surprisingly the Locust retreated before the stoic resistance of the Gears, and they were able to advance quickly along the path with no further mishaps, for once.


	5. Chapter 4: A Warm Fuzzy Feeling

The buildings didn't so much start as just begin suddenly. The trees just _stopped_, and the buildings just _started_. In the distance Isolde could see what appeared to be a blockade of some kind, but she deployed her squad to check out the buildings and avoid being ambushed from behind.

All they found in the nearly ruined houses was dust, cobwebs and a few corpses. Isolde straightened from checking one and headed towards the blockade she'd spotted ahead and ran her eyes along the wall. It was impressive: although it was made of junk and scraps, it looked like it could withstand just about anything the Locust could throw at it. She nodded to herself, and led the way to the gates.

"Stop right there!"

A voice called from above, and all of them looked up at the ancient gate guard. He eyeballed them suspiciously, and Isolde noticed that Harmony stepped forwards a little.

"Jock, it's alright, it's me Harmony."

The man's old face eased out of a suspicious glare to a toothless smile.

"Well-well! Harmony! I didn't expect to see you out here again so soon."

The older woman smiled, and then looked around.

"Would you mind letting us in? We got jumped, and I know that I need a stiff drink. I don't think any of these young ones could handle your foul brew."

The man laughed and beckoned them as one side of the gates opened.

They were eyeballed suspiciously by a young woman toting a pistol who was manning the gate, and with a slight start Isolde realised that the gate guard and the young woman had exactly the same suspicious glare. The gate clanged shut behind them, and the young woman pushed a thick strip of metal across it, barring it shut.

Jock the gate guard bounded down the stairs with the energy of a much younger man, and Isolde saw that the young woman climbed the stairs to take over his watch. Jock and Harmony embraced warmly, and walked arm in arm through the dirty streets.

Surprised at her friend, Isolde could do little but follow and knew that the others were just as confused as they followed behind her. Jock led them to a small house, warmly lit on the quickly darkening day, and held the door open.

"Well? Come on! You're letting all the heat out!"

The Gears hurried inside the building to find a neat and tidy home that was a little cramped with all the people inside. Isolde's eyes took in the fairly clean tablecloth on the table and the bunch of sweet-smelling wildflowers on the windowsill, a stark contrast with the fortified window behind the blooms, and knew that there was a home-conscious woman around.

Sure enough, a woman with the same eyes as Jock soon bustled in from another room and froze as she caught sight of all the Gear soldiers standing somewhat awkwardly in her kitchen.

"Dad…?"

She asked cautiously, her eyes seeking out Jock. He smiled at his daughter and patted Harmony on the shoulder.

"This is Harmony Johnson, a Gear. This is her squad… Uhh…"

He blinked as he realised he hadn't caught any of their names.

Surprisingly it was the only male of the squad who stepped forwards and extended a hand.

"Adam Prescott. This is Alice, Megan and Claire," he pointed to each one as he said their names "and Sergeant Isolde."

The woman nodded to each of them and did a strange little bobbing curtsey to Isolde.

"Welcome to our humble home… my name's Olivia. I hope my father told you to wipe your feet?"

Jock looked a little sheepish and said

"They weren't all that dirty, really …" Olivia sighed, but she let it go.

Tucked up for the afternoon in Olivia and Jock's cosy little home with a purring kitten on her lap, Isolde could almost forget that a war was raging outside. Harmony and Jock were drinking something foul-smelling and black, but none of the others were prepared to risk it and instead were treated to a bottle of vodka.

Claire used part her share to treat Alice: the slender Gear had a graze on her cheek where a Locust bullet had brushed her. She made a face as the alcohol stung the wound, but didn't say a word of complaint.

Afternoon rolled around too quickly, and Isolde went for a walk through the settlement in the weak sunshine. Everywhere she looked she saw people glaring at her suspiciously and sighed through her nose: they always thought that Gears only came to recruit from amongst the Stranded, which just wasn't true. Suddenly sick of the disapproving glares, the sergeant climbed the stairs onto the wall to look out at the forest.

The girl who'd let them into the compound glanced over at her and rolled her eyes before returning to her vigilant scouting of the surrounding woods. Curious, Isolde headed over to her and stood beside her. They stood without talking, both looking out into the woods and both waiting for the other to talk. Before Isolde could say anything she detected the barest pale flicker of motion and her hand went immediately to her weapon.

"Over there… saw something."

Her voice was soft, only just carrying to the other woman's ears, and Isolde saw her nod out of the corner of her eye as they both tried to see what the flicker was.

Unsurprisingly the Locust attacked only a few moments after they'd been spotted, apparently confident in the element of surprise. However they were unprepared for the resistance from above the main gate, where they were concentrating their attacks: the quickly repeated bursts of a Gear Lancer, accompanied by the ringing shots of a pistol that was powerful enough to tear through flesh, made them falter slightly. Their leader roared something guttural and they resumed their attack, although clearly less enthusiastic about it.

"GEARS!"

Isolde roared, knowing that the sound of her Lancer would draw her squad from the camp to the main gate.

She risked a glance over her shoulder as she ducked down behind the partition to reload and couldn't help but smile as she saw her squad come pelting down the main road of the compound. They were accompanied by a number of Stranded with their own weapons, but the Stranded were struggling to keep up. Harmony took the stairs four at a time and had fired her shotgun twice before the Locust had even registered her popping up over the protective wall.

She slid down next to Isolde as bullets sailed over her head and grinned at her sergeant.

"The excitement never stops, does it Sarge?"

Isolde blind-fired over the wall and nodded as she heard a satisfying roar of pain, and returned Harmony's grin with her own vicious smile.

"Nothing beats splatting the brains out of some Locust after a few drinks to give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside."

There was an alarming rumble nearby, and Isolde looked down in horror to see a Locust emergence hole opening up in the middle of the compound.

"Aww _SHIT_!"

The woman dived away as one of the emerging Locusts threw a grenade, just barely missing her. The shockwave pushed her down the stairs, swearing the whole time, and she landed in an ungraceful heap at the bottom with a clang with bits of metal falling all around her. The sergeant immediately scrambled for cover, not forgetting her Lancer, as Locust bullets sizzled into the ground where her nose used to be.

Once behind the somewhat dubious cover of a wall, she toucher her radio and growled

"Hey bitches. Anyone out there still breathing?"

Almost everyone quickly radioed back, and Isolde breathed a sigh of relief. Then she realised that Adam hadn't replied, and swore: she took a very quick look over the wall before she was pinned down again and spotted a crumpled heap where the walkway had fallen from the force of the grenade.

"Fuck me up the ass into downtown…"

She murmured almost absently, checking her ammo. There was no way that she could get to him just then, but there was a serious chance that he'd been badly injured from the fall or a Locust round (or even a stray friendly one), and Isolde knew she had to think quick or he might die and she'd be forced to take light clerical duties. With a shudder at the prospect she risked another look out to see where the enemies were, and was surprised when Jock leaped over the wall in a very impressive jump for an old man to land beside her.


	6. Chapter 5: Bleeding Hearts and Fingers

Isolde watched the Locust with some hesitation: she knew that she had to get Adam out of there ASAP, but the filthy mongrels were between her and the chairman's son, and they were _pissed_. Jock glanced over at her and seemed to realise what a predicament she was in, and nodded towards where Adam was lying.

"That boy's a strong one, sergeant. He can last a few more minutes while we deal with these pieces of shit."

Isolde nodded at his comment, absently rubbing her thumb over the chainsaw part of the Lancer.

Making a decision, she put a hand to her radio and asked

"Can anyone support me if I duck out to get Adam?"

Claire immediately replied _"No can-do, Sarge. Me and Alice are pinned down like a calf before branding."_

Isolde swore under her breath and listened for Megan's reply. _"Sorry, Sergeant. I'm protecting some young ones, and I think I can hear the Locust advancing."_

Isolde swore again, her voice harsh as she rattled off a long chain of swears. When she was done she turned to find Jock just staring at her, his face pale.

"I ain't never heard a pretty woman swear like that before."

Isolde grinned at him, priming a grenade as she told him

"You've obviously never spent time in the Gear barracks then."

She threw the grenade without looking, and smiled in a satisfied way when the two of them were splattered with assorted disgusting bits and pieces.

"Lovely."

Adam came-to slowly, trying to take stock of what hurt. The pain crashed over him like a wave and he suddenly discovered that _everything_ hurt. He managed to stifle his cry of pain, biting the inside of his cheek so hard it bled, until the full force of the pain had passed and he was able to painfully open his eyes. He was covered in rubble, and suddenly his ears tuned into gunfire close by. He froze, hoping like hell that an enemy hadn't been watching him wake up and was about to shoot him in the head.

After a few minutes he surmised that he must not have been noticed, and started to check if he was badly hurt. His chest hurt where a large concrete block had landed, and he knew that the Gear armour had probably buckled under the impact. What concerned him most, however, was the hand he could see poking out from under the rubble next to him.

He managed to shift the block and roll over but immediately knew that was a mistake: the Gear armour had definitely dented and was now poking him sharply in the chest. He kept rolling, fighting the urge to pass out again, and somehow managed to crawl over to the other pile of rubble.

His hands scrabbled against the stones in the pile, cutting his fingers and making them bleed. He dug under the stones, wincing as the dust entered the fresh cuts, attempting to free the hand and whoever lay beneath it. Luckily the rubble was loosely packed, and he was able to free the body beneath fairly quickly.

He pulled a thin metal sheet away from the person's face and revealed the graceful lines of a woman's face. She was covered in dust and he could smell blood, although if it was his or hers he couldn't tell. He quickly uncovered her body and checked her pulse: it was beating, but very faintly. Being careful not to jar her or injure her further he dragged her towards a building, amazed that the Locust hadn't noticed them yet.

Safe in a room, he checked her for a pulse and tried to remember what had happened. He found his memory was distorted and jumped from event to event, but no definite recall of the obvious explosion. Adam surmised that he must have been knocked out from the force of the blast, and then suddenly remembered that he had his radio on him.

"Sarge…?"

His question was met by a squeal of static that made him pull the damn thing from his ear with a muffled curse that his mother would have probably fainted at hearing him say. He rubbed his aching head, forcing his brain to concentrate. Everything seemed to fade as he stared at the girl's face, a memory blasting through his brain with almost as much force as the bomb… he knew this girl. Why did he know this girl? He wracked his brain, trying to place her, and growled softly when he couldn't.

He absently watched the soft rise and fall of her chest for a moment before he realised what he was looking at: blood. With a hiss he grabbed his knife and sliced open her shirt, feeling no hint of embarrassment for once as her bra was exposed.

There was a fairly shallow wound on her chest: the source of the blood. He ripped parts off her shirt and created a makeshift bandage, cursing his bad medical skills. She groaned once, but remained unconscious. When she was bandaged he peeked out around the corner to where the Locust were: with all the distorted sounds echoing down the hallway, he couldn't pick out what was going on. His stomach clenched as he remembered he needed to secure a weapon: currently both he and the girl were totally defenceless except for the combat knife that had somehow survived strapped to Adam's shin.

He muttered "need to get a weapon…" and glanced back at the girl.

She'd be ok for the few minutes he'd be gone to pick up a gun from _somewhere_ out there… wouldn't she? Cursing his inability to make decisions, Adam remained where he was and attempted to fix his radio by poking it, yelling at it and banging it against the wall a couple of times.

After a moment's banging on the wall with the stupid crap radio, he realised that the white noise in his ear had gone, and he was able to talk into it.

"Sarge? Sergeant Isolde?"

He didn't hear his own voice in the radio and hoped that he hadn't broken the damn thing for real. He was surprised when he heard

"_Fall back and regroup! Send an order for another wave!"_

In a deep roar that he knew didn't belong to any of his squad. Somehow Adam had managed to accidentally hit his radio to tune into a Locust frequency! He hadn't even been aware that they wore radios, but there was the proof. He listened, fascinated, as the Locust yelled at each other about "the flame-head" advancing and surmised that must have been his sergeant.

He was so engrossed with the strange voices in his ear that he didn't notice Isolde sneaking up behind him until she grabbed him and snarled in his ear

"You sad excuse for a warrior… you're not even paying attention! How am I ever going to keep you safe if you keep trying to get yourself killed all the time?"

Surprised, Adam looked up at her and realised from the look in her eyes that she'd been worried about him.

Isolde blinked, and the worried look in her eyes vanished to be replaced by the usual indifference and then curiosity as she knelt beside the bleeding girl.

"This is Jock's granddaughter… WHAT IS SO GODDAMN INTERESTING?"

She ripped the radio from his ear and shoved it in her own, and her eyes widened.

"Prescott… how did you get this?"

Adam shrugged, watching his sergeant for any sign of displeasure that might get him kicked out. But she just stared at the ground, and handed it back to him.

"Don't change the channel on it… I'll get you another radio. We can definitely use this."

She tucked the radio in a pocket, and turned back to the girl.

"How long ago was she wounded?"

Adam looked over, frowning as he saw that her makeshift bandages were soaked with blood.

"A while ago… it wasn't even that bad an injury."

She checked the girl's pulse, and scowled.

"She might be a haemophiliac. We have to get her out of here."

The sergeant turned and sized up Adam.

"Prescott, you're a muscular kid. Carry her, but _gently_."

He nodded and quickly picked her up, surprised how slight her weight was. Her head lolled against his chest and rested there, and he felt surprisingly protective of the girl.


	7. Chapter 6: Bullet For Your Thoughts?

Olivia fluttered around the girl in Adam's arms, tears in her eyes and her voice shrill. Isolde watched the three of them, wondering at the comfortable way that Adam held Olivia's daughter. She absently dug under her cast with her fingers, trying to scratch an itch that was too in the middle to be got at from either side, and scowled when she realised she couldn't reach it.

As the sergeant moved into the kitchen of the tidy home to find something – anything – to scratch her itch, she suddenly noticed just how little room there was in the house.

Isolde felt herself start to breathe faster as the walls suddenly seemed to close in on her, and knew she had to get outside before the panic attack affected her so much that she started to hyperventilate and eventually passed out. Mumbling excuses that went unheeded by the others, she staggered outside and fell to her knees in the street.

Once her breathing had calmed down, Isolde looked up at the sky. The kitten she'd found had followed her outside, and rubbed against her mewing. She smiled a little and scratched the tiny cat on its head, trying to keep her mind completely free of the terrible montage of thoughts and memories that always inevitably came up after a panic attack like that… but they came anyway, no matter how hard she tried to keep them out, and so she bowed her head and allowed them to explode fully into her mind.

First there was the darkness. She'd never liked the darkness: it was close, hot and dangerous. The stink of other people pressed her from all sides, but she couldn't see them, couldn't feel them… but she could hear them.

The eardrum shattering screams had scared the girl at first, but soon she learned to revel in them: they were lifelines of sound that meant she wasn't alone. Then came the light – horrible, glorious light – that meant danger and death to anyone that saw it. Slimy hands grabbed her and no matter how hard she struggled and screamed they wouldn't let her free to return to her dark existence.

Isolde didn't remember the next bit: she'd been told that her memory had blanked it out to try and protect her sanity. All she knew was that the next memory was her staring down at her bloodstained hands, holding a gun and her eyes stinging with tears.

She remembered looking up at the doorway of the room that she could never quite remember and saw movement: shakily she'd raised the gun again and pulled the trigger, but it was out of bullets and her hands were too sore to fire again anyway.

She'd thrown down the gun, preparing to fight the next shadow with her bare hands… but the people in the bulky armour didn't appear to pose a threat to her. One of them even seemed to know her name: the tall brown-haired woman kept saying it like a question. _Isolde… Isolde…! _She'd had blacked out then, and woken up in a clean white room.

"ISOLDE!"

The sergeant jumped, torn from her reverie, as Harmony screamed her name in her ear to try and get her attention.

"What?"

Isolde, ashamed to have been caught remembering, scrambled to her feet and looked around wildly. Harmony was standing there, staring at her, as were the other members of her squad (except Adam, who she assumed was still inside with the injured girl).

Isolde shook herself, trying to remember what was going on and what had been said. The girls around her were just staring at her, though, and she wondered what she'd said or done to warrant such attention.

Finally she just got sick of their staring, judging eyes and roared

"WHAT?"

None of the women around her would meet her eyes except her oldest friend, Harmony.

"Isolde… are you feeling ok?"

Isolde stared at her.

"What do you mean? I feel fine."

Harmony cleared her throat awkwardly and stepped closer to speak conspiratorially to her sergeant.

"Izzy, you were crying like a little girl."

Isolde's face blanched and she looked around quickly. Her squad refused to meet her eyes: they'd obviously thought that she was an emotionless robot.

"What, you've never seen a grown woman cry like a little girl before?"

She stormed off, not really angry with them but very angry with herself for allowing herself to drift off into La-La-Land so soon after a Locust attack when all their lives were in more danger than usual.

Before she could get very far, the lookout above the ruined wall yelled

"INCOMING!"

With no further thought Isolde ran back to the wall, grabbing her gun from Alice.

"We have to get these people out of here now! This place isn't gonna last much longer."

Isolde growled the words as she ran, her trigger finger itching. An incoming mortar forced her to dive away and for an instant she saw the other women ushering Stranded away from the contact zone, down the other end towards the far wall. Then she landed with a heavy crunch and rolled to her feet, wincing a little as she felt her broken arm scream in complaint. Isolde ignored it, however, and brought her gun up to rest comfortably on her shoulder in a well-practised manoeuvre.

The Locust horde was too much for her, and suddenly she couldn't hold them off by herself. Isolde slowly retreated, ducking behind cover where possible, trying to sneak glances to see if all the Stranded were out yet.

Harmony waved to her from the back: the ok signal, meaning all civilians were out. Isolde nodded to herself, glad that she didn't have to bother with the Stranded as she wildly mowed down wave after wave with her Lancer.

She let her mind wander momentarily in the calm that she always felt firing at enemies and gasped as a sudden memory hit her: a man's face and cold, soothing voice telling her it was all going to be ok… and a hand raised above her holding a scalpel.

"_ISOLDE FOR FUCK'S SAKE GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE!"_

Harmony's voice on the radio brought her suddenly back to the present and Isolde lifted the dipping barrel of her Lancer one last time. She shifted so she could fire one handed and primed a grenade with her free hand: a diversion so she could perform a tactical retreat without getting shot in the ass again.

She threw it left handed and watched it sail in slow motion towards the centre of the crowd of Locusts. They turned simultaneously as Isolde turned tail and pelted up the street towards her waiting squad, the sudden force of the explosion throwing her to the ground at Harmony's feet.

The matriarch of the squad helped the sergeant to her feet and brushed her down a little, pointless as it was, and clapped the younger woman on the shoulder.

"Nice one, Sarge. Now let's head off before we get strung up for Wretch food."

Isolde could only nod, her throat dried out by either dust or the sudden memory she'd had. Maybe it was a combination of both, she mused as they jogged up the street towards the hole in the back wall where the Stranded had escaped from.

Alice had moved ahead and was doing something to the wall of the biggest concrete building in the encampment. Once the squad was clear, she backed up quickly and hid behind a partition. Isolde turned and ducked behind a ruined car to watch, curious. The Locust troops, having been only temporarily stunned by Isolde's grenade, rushed up the street. As soon as most of them were in the shadow of the huge concrete structure, Alice pushed a button.

The effect was instantaneous: the C4 charges on the support pillars detonated and the huge building seemed to crumple and fall like a giant being brought to its knees. The tonnes of concrete smashed directly down onto the majority of the Locust soldiers, crushing them beneath its weight. The Locust lucky enough to be behind the block were thrown backwards by the shockwave, and those unlucky enough to be caught in front of the rubble were mowed down by Alice and Isolde.

The two women grinned at each other, sharing an oddly special moment. The moment was then subsequently ruined by Adam Prescott clomping back in his size twelves to fetch them because otherwise they would have been left behind. Isolde scowled at him but scrambled to her feet and noticed Alice did the same.

Isolde led the way, breaking into a steady rolling lope that ate up the distance between her and the rest of the squad with ease. She loped past them and continued up the narrow dirt path, her feet sure even on the uneven surface. "Keep up, kiddies!" Isolde couldn't help but throw the words over her shoulder to tease her squad. She heard them groan loudly, and smiled.


	8. Chapter 7: Unfinished Business

Isolde hurried the Stranded along, using the butt of her Lancer when necessary to provide incentive to move faster. Her squad was formed up around the large group as best they could, trying to hurry them along, but they were still moving too slowly for Isolde's liking. Harmony and she exchanged looks: hers pissed off and Harmony's vaguely worried and encouraging.

The sergeant turned and stared down the path, her eyes darting around as she tried to see if the Locust were following them yet. Her heart started to race as she saw the tell-tale dust cloud of the pursuing Locusts, and she quickly raced to catch up with the group.

"Move it, people! They're right behind us! Don't stop to look, just run!"

Her voice was growly and hoarse from all the yelling and she noticed with satisfaction that the Stranded sped up a little more.

To Isolde's great horror, Locust rose up out of the bushes either side and made their way onto the path. She tried to stop but couldn't, and ended up crashing right into two of them and knocking the enemy to the ground.

She flailed around with the butt of her Lancer, punching with her other hand as hard as possible on any flesh she could contact. More Locusts converged on her, and she began kicking at them in desperation. Her mind was completely blank and her face settled into a savage snarl as she kicked, punched and bit her enemies to try and get away.

Suddenly there were people pulling the stunned Locusts off her, and she sat up to take a breath. The wind had been knocked out of her and as she struggled to breathe she cast her eyes around: it had to be one of the strangest sights she'd ever seen, Stranded brawling with armed Locusts with no weapons except their bare fists and tree branches collected from the ground. She shook her head and took a huge heaving breath as her lungs remembered how to work.

The Locusts were driven off through the power of sheer desperation and they ran, leaving their weapons behind. Several Stranded recovered the guns, and Isolde was hauled to her feet by Harmony.

"Thanks…"

She cleared her throat and addressed the group.

"Obviously a full-out sprint won't work to avoid the enemy. Alpha F: head through the woods. Alice, I want you to go ahead and see if we can't get some advance warning on the obvious ambushes. You there… Prescott!"

Adam saluted, and she continued.

"I want you to stay in with the Stranded."

He objected but she held up her hand and talked over him.

"We need at least one Gear in with the crowd."

He shut his mouth and nodded sullenly, and she patted him on the head.

"You'll be alright, kid."

He nodded again and watched her fade into the trees.

Once she was away from the group Isolde took to a moment to lean against a tree and drink out of her water bottle, her eyes always searching for enemies as she caught her breath.

Her damn broken arm was itching like hell again, and she'd lost her scratching fork in the skirmish at the Stranded camp. The kitten rubbed against the armour of her legs, purring and leaving dirty streaks on the filthy metal.

"Kitty… you've been no trouble at all so far."

She bent down to pat the cat, and her heart missed a beat as she heard a sniper round whistle over her head and become embedded in the trunk of the tree.

Immediately she ducked for cover behind a big log, her Lancer coming up as she returned fire blindly. Something heavy fell out of a tree a few hundred yards away, taking several branches with it, and Isolde waited.

When the previously-silent birds started calling calmly again she assumed it was safe and got up, moving from cover to cover to investigate the sniper. It was a Locust lying face down in the dirt, of course, but the crude insignia on its shoulder wasn't like anything she'd ever seen before.

Constantly on the lookout for tricks, the sergeant poked it hard with the barrel of her Lancer, trigger already in the halfway position. It didn't move, and when she kicked it over it was clear why; her rounds had made a neat diagonal line of exploded flesh through the Locusts' unprotected chest. That was the second thing that stood out as odd to Isolde; there wasn't a single protective plate on the Locusts' body.

"Now that's just weird…"

She bent down and searched it roughly, not exactly sure what she was looking for.

Isolde's rough search turned up nothing from the Locust pockets (she hadn't even been aware that they had pockets) except ammo and a disgusting piece of what smelled like rotting toe-jam and was a strange bronze colour; she assumed it was a jerked meat of some indeterminable kind and tossed it rather than risk poisoning herself. She was about to leave the corpse to rot in the forest when its sniper rifle caught her eye.

"Holy shit…"

She picked it up and looked it over; it had been customised by someone who knew what they were doing. It felt like a part of her arm when she looked down the sight (which had also been modified to a ridiculous extent) and after a moment Isolde slung the weapon onto her back.

"No sense letting good shit go to waste…"

Her radio coming to life made her jump slightly and Harmony asked

"_Isolde where the hell are you?"_

The sergeant shifted her Lancer and picked up her cat, telling the radio-voice

"I'm on my way, just had to take care of some unfinished business."

While thoroughly sweeping the area with the rest of her squad, keeping pace either side of the group of rabble on the main path guarded by a single green rookie, Isolde took advantage of the momentary quiet to radio for a pick up.

"Control this is Sergeant Isolde of Alpha F, requesting pick-up."

She cast her eyes over the group and added

"Three of those tasty big-ass Ravens, if you'd be so kind Control. We've got a wounded girl who's in pretty bad shape and a lot more civilians than we bargained for. Turns out there was quite the little community burrowed in up here."

Isolde scratched at her cast, muttering swears under her breath as Control told her

"_Copy that, Sergeant. Would you like fries with that?"_

Isolde smiled at the private joke and gave the customary reply

"Large fries and a 'shake, thanks."

The control operative could be heard grinning back as he asked

"_What flavour? Locust-blood?"_

Isolde made a face and spat on the ground in disgust. "You ever tasted Locust blood, Larry? It has to be the vilest thing that I've ever been unfortunate enough to have my mouth open for. O'Connor, out."

The Locust thought they'd sneak one last attack, but there was no force behind it and it seemed to Isolde that the Locust had no motivation. As she mowed one last monster down, she told Harmony

"If you guys acted like that, I'd kick your butts."

Harmony laughed as she moved towards the waiting helicopters, urging a few straggling Stranded along with an encouraging look and was helped into the last helicopter, turning to watch Isolde look around one last time and make a massive jump into the Raven as it was taking off. Harmony helped her up and smiled at her sergeant.

"If we acted like the Locust scum, Izzy, I'd tell the commander that you weren't doing your job properly."

Isolde made a face at her and turned to stare out the open side of the helicopter as they headed back to Jacinto for debriefing and, Isolde thought hopefully, a burning hot cup of coffee.


	9. Chapter 8: Death Cup for Grumpy

Isolde leaped out of the Raven before it even landed telling Harmony and the world

"GODDAMN I need a fucking giant cup of coffee after that shit… wanna treat me?"

Harmony grinned and was about to reply, but broke off before she even started and looked past Isolde as she climbed down out of the helicopter. Isolde, seeing where she was looking, turned and saw Chairman Prescott standing waiting for them with his hands behind his back, hair blowing in the wind created by the Raven's blades.

The women exchanged looks, and then Isolde moved forwards.

"Chairman Prescott, sir."

She saluted as neatly as possible with a broken arm, and he blinked as though coming out of a deep trance of thought.

"Welcome back… Sergeant."

He searched the people now disembarking from the Raven, Isolde already forgotten. She got out of his way and rolled her eyes at Harmony from behind his back, pulling a mocking face.

Adam ran forwards, staying at the side of the injured girl as she was whisked away by the paramedics to the hospital.

"Adam!"

The sound of his fathers' voice seemed to bring him back to reality, and reluctantly he approached.

"Hello father…"

The moment was awkward, and silence stretched between the two men. However Isolde broke it rather spectacularly by stretching too far and popping a rib.

She dropped to the cement below with a cry of pain, her chest on fire.

"Isolde…!"

Harmony's voice faded in and out as the searing pain of the displaced rib made her pass out for a second, but she was back very quickly and opened her eyes to see Harmony, Adam and the Chairman standing over her.

Gasping she held a hand out to them

"Help me up, would you?"

Harmony and Adam carefully helped her upright into a sitting position, and then hauled her to her feet.

"Fucking hell…"

She breathed shallowly as she doubled over, fighting nausea.

"Are you alright, Sergeant?"

She swallowed and straightened slowly with a grimace.

"Rib popped out of place again… it was painful enough the first time it was broken, sir."

The Chairman seemed professionally concerned, but as soon as she assured him she was alright, he walked away towards command.

Isolde leaned on Harmony and glared her best death-glare at the man's retreating back, muttering

"Fucking cunt of a man… more shit spews out of his mouth in one conversation than out of the ass of a rookie who's eaten too many rotten rations".

Harmony nodded, adding her own death glare.

"Any self-respecting woman would want to dance on his grave. It's harder for you girls, because you're all still young and beautiful."

Her face eased into a sad smile as she helped Isolde across to the hospital to get her rib re-set.

"I've done my biological duty to continuing the human race, and I'm proud of that."

Isolde patted her old friend on the chest plate comfortingly as they went into the hospital, telling her

"Now you get to help defend what you helped create. I'm sure that's a good feeling for you."

After a few moments of outside conversation with an orderly in blood-stained scrubs, Isolde continued

"I'd be a really shitty mother, even if I could. I'm too accident prone… but little red-haired brats are impossible now, thank god."

Harmony blinked; she'd never known that about her friend.

Just then the doctor appeared and beckoned to her, and Harmony helped Isolde into an examination room where she began removing her protective plating.

"Yet again you're in here straight after a mission, Sergeant. We should slap a 'Fragile' sticker to your ass-plate… alright, what's wrong with you this time?"

Isolde glared at him.

"Apart from a pain-in-the-ass doctor making terrible jokes, I popped a rib when I stretched. Oh and my arm is as itchy as fuck and a Locust stole my scratching fork in a fight."

The doctor nodded.

"That means your arm's healing… raise your arms for me and bite down on the wood there."

Before she did so she sighed and muttered.

"It's such an inglorious way to break ribs, especially since I got tossed around a lot by the Locust scum today."

Harmony covered her ears, but it turned out not to be necessary. Isolde sat through the whole thing calmly as the doctor said

"You being thrown around is what weakened the bond; you stretching pushed it too far. Be glad it's only the one".

Once it was done she shifted experimentally and then thanked the doctor. He sighed and walked out without replying, and Isolde shrugged. She turned to Harmony and asked

"How about that cup of coffee, old friend?"

It was just a short walk from the hospital to the only café still left in Jacinto. Since its rivals had been looted during various attacks, it was doing thriving business. The proprietors of the store, an older woman and her crippled son, served the steady stream of people ebbing in and out of the place with good nature and ready smiles.

Harmony and Isolde made their way into the place, pushing a few idly chatting male Gears out of the way to get to a reserved table in the very back corner. The old lady saw them enter and waved at them, and Isolde waved back as she took her seat at the table. After a few moments, the old lady bustled over with a smile.

"How are two of my favourite Gears?"

She pinched Isolde's cheek and kissed Harmony's as they both murmured pleasantries.

She bustled off again to get coffee and Isolde very carefully stretched out her whole body until she was sitting practically off the edge of the chair. Harmony leaned her head on her hand and her elbow on the table as she commented thoughtfully

"Alice's mother is really nice to always have this table reserved for us."

Isolde grinned impishly as she childishly swung a foot, being careful not to boot Harmony in the shins.

"That's just one of the benefits of saving someone's life. You always have a table reserved at that persons' mothers' coffee shop." She smirked at her friend and added "I should have gotten a fucking medal for dashing through enemy lines to get her wounded ass outta there. But this, I think, is better."

Alice's younger brother, a very tall, very pale youth with large luminous blue eyes that were still surprisingly gentle after so many years of war and hardship brought two cups over on a tray. He set them down in a practised motion, the chipped-but-still-good teacup with a herbal blend for Harmony and the massive mug of boiling hot extra strength black coffee for Isolde.

"Thank you, Daniel."

The boy pulled up a chair as Harmony thanked him, his luminous eyes on Isolde as he breathlessly waited for her to talk.

She gave him a look that was half-chastising, half-playful but completely what he wanted to see; he giggled childishly and she cleared her throat.

"Thank you, Daniel"

She pitched her voice ridiculously high and he laughed, his pale boyish face lighting up.

"Daniel!"

The boy left with a regretful sigh, holding the tray on his head like a hat.

The sergeant took a gulp of the coffee and sighed as it warmed her.

"Nothin' better than a cup of hydroponic coffee to lift the spirits."

Harmony smiled at her as she sipped the herbal tea.

"Get you a proper cup of coffee in a big mug with a handle and you're anyone's."

Isolde shrugged.

"It's not my fault I'm a caffeine junkie. Blame the system."

She yawned lazily and looked around, wondering if the others were going to join them. The woman felt she was able to rule out Adam, since he'd probably be with that injured girl. Alice sadly didn't want anything to do with her mother and brother, avoiding them when possible. Isolde had a few ideas on the subject, but the other woman had never shared the reason behind her dislike of her family and wisely the others had never pressed her on it.

It didn't rule out Megan and Claire, but Isolde's knowledge of them told her that Megan wouldn't be joining them; instead she was probably seeing her girlfriend. That made Isolde smile; the male Gears who hit on Megan never knew, but were always surprised to find out the attractive young woman's sexual orientation. Then Isolde considered what Adam's reaction would be, and was surprised to find that she already thought of him as part of her little family, albeit as an annoying pain-in-the-ass baby brother.

When she looked up, she found that Harmony was watching her with an amused expression. Suddenly self-conscious, Isolde looked away and asked

"What?"

Harmony shook her head and looked down at her teacup.

"I was just thinking… I never knew you were infertile."

Isolde went a little red; it wasn't a subject she enjoyed discussing.

"Yeah it's not something I tell just anyone. Like… try no one."

Harmony scoffed, leaning back.

"Why not? It's not exactly uncommon, and nothing to be ashamed of."

Isolde shrugged and downed the rest of her coffee in one large gulp.

"I'm ashamed of it. End of discussion."

The sergeant was gone before Harmony could say anything further, and the older woman sighed as she realised she'd upset Isolde. However there was nothing she could do about it right then, because her attention was drawn away to a loud verbal fight between two older Gears.

It wouldn't have interested her normally, but she thought heard her youngest son's name murmured underneath the louder words of the other Gears and looked wildly to try and locate who'd said it.

When she came up with nothing she bit back the bitter tide of disappointment that she always felt with a setback regarding finding her sons and went to the counter to pay, hoping like hell that Isolde wasn't going to do anything stupid while Harmony wasn't there to stop her. The younger woman was like a daughter to her, and Harmony chuckled quietly to herself as she realised that all the girls on the squad were like daughters.

"Oh I'm so old…"

With a jaunty whistle, the grey-haired Gear left the coffee shop to go home to a nice hot bath.


	10. Chapter 9: Something in the Dark

"Oh shit, oh fuck… please god no…"

His breath was ragged in his chest as he ran, his Lancer dropped and long forgotten as blind panic of imminent death fuelled the boys' desperate flight through the forest. All he could hear was the hammering of his own heart and the loud footsteps reverberating off the trees, but the boy didn't know if they were his own or his pursuers'.

Something white flickered momentarily in his peripheral vision and he pushed himself to run faster, loudly cursing the heavy protective Gear armour he wore as it weighed him down. Gasping for breath Gareth ran for the Centaur that his sergeant had parked on the edge of the woods before their recon mission, hoping like fuck that he wouldn't trip and fall on any of the exposed roots.

The goddess of luck, it appeared, was smiling on him as he exited the woods at a dead run, heading for the open door of the Centaur. He slammed it shut behind him and, barely slowing, threw himself into the drivers' seat.

The controls were way too advanced for his panic-gripped mind, so he simply jammed the vehicle in reverse and slammed his foot down on the accelerator as hard as he could. The Centaur shot backwards, and Gareth wildly swung the wheel as he changed to a forward gear with an unpleasant grinding noise.

He drove as fast as he possibly could back towards Jacinto, panic making every bump and jolt into an enemy leaping onto the zippy little ATV. The road seemed a lot shorter than it had on the way up to the edge of the forest, where only a few hours ago his team had jokingly tried to spook each other with stories of ghosts that sucked blood and giant wolves that turned into men as they'd gone into the forest.

The following memory was too unpleasant and Gareth shook his head violently, making the Centaur careen wildly all over the place. Almost glad that he was alone in the vehicle so no one saw him do it, Gareth opened his eyes wide and thought about cute puppies as hard as he could.

Once he'd calmed down, Gareth stopped the Centaur and tried his radio. After a few minutes of complete silence there was a faint voice requesting his position. All decorum lost, Gareth just sobbed for a few seconds and shakily replied

"Private Gareth Johnson, reporting in… they're all dead!"

The radio operator, sounding louder now, asked

"_What squad are you in, Private Johnson?" _

He blinked for a second before it came to him.

"Beta-five."

He started the Centaur again and started driving for Jacinto as the radio operator told him

"_The Chairman wants you to return to command and report. Do you require a pick-up?" _

He shook his head before he remembered that the operator couldn't see him, and managed to scrape together

"No, I have a Centaur… Private Johnson, out."

He drove shakily the rest of the way back and passed the gate inspection with no trouble. All he wanted to do was go and find his mother for a hug and then go to bed, but he parked the Centaur and slid out of the vehicle to walk slowly towards command, dreading his report and the horrors that would be resurrected in it.

He'd paused on the way up to straighten his hair in a grimy window, and he stared at his reflection, trying to will some colour back into his pale cheeks.

"Private Johnson of Beta-five?"

He looked up and saw a young woman dressed in a neat grey uniform. She looked to be older than he was, but that wasn't uncommon; he was as young as they took in the Gears. He nodded, and she motioned to him to follow her. He was led down a long hallway to an office, where an older officer was seated behind a desk piled high with papers.

"Private…"

he waited until Gareth had saluted before nodding to a chair. He cleared his throat once the boy had sat down, and began.

"Young man, I understand that your squad was on a recon mission in the woods a few kilometres from the north perimeter. Tell me what happened."

Gareth nodded and swallowed, gathering his thoughts together before he began to speak.

"It seemed to be a routine recon. We made our way out to the designated spot… I can't remember who it was, but one of us started joking around about a friend of a friend seeing monsters in those woods. We thought it was ridiculous, but it was funny… we got to the red zone and found a building there, hidden from aerial sweeps by branches. We went inside…"

He shuddered.

"There were corpses hanging from hooks. Dozens of them; not just Gears, Locusts too. There was a trapdoor in the floor. We opened it up and went down it, leaving Elliot behind as a rearguard… the sergeant led the way down and he was the first to go."

He paused again and shut his eyes, fighting a wave of nausea.

"There was something… something in the dark. It got the sergeant before any of us realised something was happening, and by the time I got up the ladder the others were dead, and Elliot was no-where to be seen. I ran back to the Centaur as fast as I could and… well… here I am."

When he opened his eyes again the officer was writing, but he stopped and looked up at the boy.

"Can you give me some co-ordinates?"

Gareth shook his head, looking down at his hands.

"No sir, I'm sorry."

The officer got up and started pacing.

"Hidden from aerial sweeps… Beta-five was a less than excellent squad. I'm going to need you to try and stay focused for a little while longer while I hand this report to the Chairman and give my recommendation that Alpha-F handles this."

Gareth's stomach dropped when he heard 'Alpha-F'; immediately his mind conjured up a demon with flaming red hair that used to terrorise his nightmares. His eyes widened and the officer patted him on the shoulder-plate.

"You'll be alright son."

The older man poured him a glass of liquor and handed it to him, leaning down a little to say

"I'll get someone to bring you something to eat. Just stay calm, have a drink, and breathe slowly."

The older man picked up the papers he'd been writing on and walked out the door. Gareth took a sip of the liquor and almost spat it out, but managed to choke the mouthful down. The drink made him sleepy; he leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes for a only a moment…


	11. Chapter 10: Can't Fight The Moonshine

The crowd was roaring but it had faded to a mute hum in Isolde's ears. She avoided the jab at her throat with a little difficulty; there was blood pouring down into her left eye from a decent cut above it and it made it difficult to see. Her opponent, a wily older Gear, was using this to his best advantage as he jabbed, punched and kicked at the blind side of her body.

Isolde defended against each of his attacks, waiting for the feint and then the lunge that inevitably came. She grabbed her opponent's wrist as it sailed past her, and threw him into the wall. He went down for a moment but struggled back to his feet, shaking his head to clear it.

Isolde took the moment of slight reprieve to glance at the manager; he raised his eyebrows at her and tapped his wrist to mime 'time'. She scowled at him and went down under a sudden spear tackle, but she rolled under the older, slower Gear and came up.

His move having backfired, her opponent lumbered to his feet only to be sucker-punched with a king-hit. Isolde shook her hand out; it felt like it was on fire. Suddenly she became aware that the crowd was roaring again, and went over to check the other Gear. He was unconscious but not too badly hurt, so Isolde signalled for the medics and left the ring.

The manager pulled her aside, silently handing her a folded piece of paper and an envelope.

"This came while you were fighting. Good show…"

He disappeared as Isolde looked quickly around before unfolding the piece of paper and drawing up a chair. It was a letter from Harmony, and it read

"_Isolde: we're having a top-secret briefing this evening, as early as everyone can get to command. I'm sure the Chairman won't want to waste the opportunity to verbally abuse us and then send us to die, so it's sure to be an immediate deployment into some god-forsaken red hot zone. Should be fun! Don't be late. Love Harmony."_

Isolde screwed up the letter and threw it into one of the fires burning near the fighting ring. She picked up her military jacket and pulled it on, clamping the envelope in her mouth until she was well outside in the freezing cold air before tucking it inside her coat.

Her cat sleepily poked her head out of a specially-altered inner pocket where she'd been sleeping; the tiny muddy kitten that Isolde had randomly picked up had survived several incursions and was now a lean fighting machine that hated Locust as much as her mistress. The adorable adolescent cat also gave Isolde something to love, and she was noticing a definite improvement in her general anger at the world.

She wandered towards command, taking her time, knowing it would piss the higher-ups off. Just because there'd been an improvement in her temperament, thanks to the cat purring comfortably in her pocket, didn't mean she couldn't still be snotty about being called into command late on her day off.

Thinking about it, she knew that at least Claire would be drunk by the time they had to report and smiled as she considered the Chairman's reaction to a drunken female Gear. She strolled casually up the stairs and into the building, past several other male officers gathered in a group. One turned and looked her over, apparently oblivious to the colour of her hair.

"Hey pretty lady; I think you're going the wrong way… my place is down the street."

He grinned at his wiser compatriots, who avoided his gaze and shuffled away from him to give Isolde room. She turned on him and smiled

"So you think I'm in the wrong place?"

He grinned and nodded, apparently not noticing his friends trying to give him the signal to shut up. The sergeant barely seemed to move, but suddenly the other officer was pinned to the wall by her forearm. Her cat scrambled out of her pocket and perched on her shoulder, hissing at the man as Isolde stared at him, her expression deadly.

"I'm thinking that I'm going to have to teach you some respect for us female Gears. As you can see, I've already been out teaching other Gears to respect us."

The man started shaking as she leaned closer, eyes intense.

"Next time you think you might like to hit on a girl, just remember that she's a person too. As much as the Chairman says she's not."

She shoved the man one last time and walked off, fuming, leaving him to fall to the ground in a daze.

She didn't pause but simply barrelled her way through the building, her cat perched on her shoulder. Harmony was waiting outside a room at the end of a long corridor, and Isolde moved more quickly towards her.

"Sergeant…"

Harmony looked her over, her face creasing into a worried frown as she took in the blood. Isolde ignored her worried look and asked

"Are the others here yet?"

Harmony nodded.

"You're the last to arrive. I managed to get to Claire before she got too drunk, but we'll have to watch her during the briefing to stop her saying or doing anything stupid."

Isolde nodded and stepped through the doorway, eyes quickly flicking around to take in the surroundings.

It was a very plain office but a lot bigger than the offices of the other members of the general staff. The Chairman sat behind his desk, his hands folded in front of him as the other girls stood silently, waiting. Adam was leaning against the wall near the door, and he nodded to Isolde when she glanced at him. Her scrutiny of the office was interrupted by the Chairman's voice.

"It's so good of you to finally join us, Sergeant. Are you alright? You seem to be bleeding."

Isolde wiped quickly at the cut above her eye and shrugged.

"I'm fine, sir, but thank you for your concern."

The man nodded and picked up a sheet of paper that had been sitting in front of him.

"Earlier this evening, I received this report. It concerns Beta-five squad, a less-than-exemplary squad who'd been given the task to investigate some strange noises outside the North perimeter… long story short, only one of them survived."

The Chairman looked at Harmony.

"A certain Private Gareth Johnson…"

Isolde saw Harmony's eyes widen, and the older woman asked

"Is he…?"

The Chairman shrugged.

"The medical officers can't find anything wrong with him, except for mental trauma. But the point is his squad found a highly suspicious building. We need Alpha-F to investigate further with your…"

He coughed delicately

"…'_unique_' way of doing things."

Isolde stared at the floor, feeling her face settle into a scowl.

"So you want us to investigate something that's already been investigated."

The Chairman nodded

"Essentially, yes. But it's more the space _underneath_ the suspicious building that we need you to take a look at. According to Private Johnson… there's something down there."

He cast his eyes over the squad of women (and his son) again, focusing mostly on Claire weaving slightly on her feet and on Isolde's various cuts and bruises.

"I'm giving you a few days to get yourselves together. Dismissed."

The squad started to move off, but another thought seemed to occur to the Chairman.

"Oh and Sergeant O'Connor… young Private Johnson will be going with you in the place of Adam. You understand why."

Isolde bit back the acidic retort that sprang to mind about wanting to protect his precious DNA and sending a mentally-unstable Private back to the place where recent trauma occurred to do so and saluted, leaving and shutting the door behind her.

The other girls were already halfway down the hall; Claire, Megan and Alice to go and finish their drinking and Harmony hurrying to go and check on her youngest son. Isolde scratched her cat and wiped at the sluggishly bleeding cut, freezing as she heard Adam say loudly

"I can't believe you're not letting me go out again!"

Curious, she pressed her ear against the door and managed to catch the Chairman say quietly

"I don't want to risk you on a suicide mission."

Adam made a noise of derision and snapped

"The Sergeant looked out for me last time when I was nearly blown up by a grenade. Do you think she'd let me die in some underground hole?"

The Chairman's tone was even as he stated calmly

"This mission is much more dangerous, and quite frankly they're a lot more disposable than you. O'Connor's a good sergeant, one of the best. But the fact is that, when it comes down to it, she'll look out for number one and expect you to carry your own weight."

Adam was silent, and then the Chairman added

"You're just not ready. I'll send you out on a few more recons and rescues first, and then we can discuss a suicidal mission. Dismissed."

Isolde just managed to scramble away from the door and out of the way as Adam barrelled out of his fathers' office, slamming the door behind him. He breathed hard for a couple of seconds, and then seemed to realise that he wasn't alone. Isolde just stared at him, and he smoothed back his hair before nodding to her.

"Sergeant…"

The boy started to walk off, but Isolde grabbed his arm.

"Come on, you. Let's go drinking."

She started dragging, and he stuttered "w-wait!"

They both stopped and stared at each other, and he managed to scrape together

"Don't you want to go out with the other girls? Or at least Harmony?"

Isolde shrugged, nearly dislodging her cat (and earning a few scratches).

"The other girls have already downed rounds so they'd win a 'drink to insensibility' contest, and Harmony's taking her care of her dipshit son."

She smiled a little at him.

"Come on. I won't bite… unless you want me to."

He raised an eyebrow but followed her down the corridor, his fight with his father already almost forgotten.

Instead of going to any of the watering holes where off-duty Gears usually hung out, Adam received the dubious honour of being invited to Isolde's place.

"I brew my own. It's better than any of that practically negative-proof shit you'd get anywhere else. It's nothing like Harmony's friends' moonshine, but it gets you nicely toasted pretty quickly."

She opened the front door, and Adam took a moment to examine the house; it was a town-house, snuggled up between two others in a moderately-untouched part of the city. It seemed too big for just one person, and when he walked in from the spacious hallway to the even more spacious living room he noticed a lot of dust.

"I don't really use this room. I don't use a lot of rooms, to be honest. Usually, when I'm here, just the basement, bathroom, kitchen and study get used."

She opened a door off the hallway and disappeared for a few moments while Adam examined the dusty pictures on the mantelpiece.

They depicted various stages of the sergeant's life: from an adorable red-haired baby to a serious-faced little girl under a long wave of fiery hair in the arms of a tough-looking, grinning Gear with the same hair, to a professional shot of her in her uniform staring into the distance, to a casual sepia shot taken of her and several other Gears grinning and posing with their Lancers. Adam recognised her and Harmony but no-one else in the group picture, and spent the most time studying that.

"Here we are…"

Isolde chose that moment to come back like an author's plot device and handed him a bottle of clear liquid.

"Get that down you, and don't tell your daddy. I can get court-martialled for this."

She opened her own bottle and swigged as he gave her a disbelieving look.

"Court-martialled, for making moonshine in your basement?"

Isolde shrugged

"That and giving it to the Chairman's son…"

She grinned cheekily and threw herself down on the couch, raising a puff of dust that made them both cough. He sat a little more gingerly next to her, and petted the kitten that slipped out of her coat to curl up between them and lick her pretty paws clean.

The silence suddenly stretched awkwardly between them, and to cover his sudden embarrassment Adam took a sip of the moonshine. He swallowed convulsively and coughed, his throat on fire, and Isolde pounded him on the back.

"You'll be right, boyo."

After a while he managed to get himself under control, and tried to breathe evenly without setting off his coughing again.

"That's… very strong."

He managed to gasp out, and Isolde laughed. She took another long draught and nodded.

"It's no fun if it's piss-weak. If it was just 100% sugar… how is that fun for anyone?"

Adam had no idea what she was talking about, and cast his eyes over the pictures again.

The old picture of the serious little girl in the arms of a burly, grinning Gear caught his eye again; from the edges, this photo had obviously been well-loved. He felt Isolde's eyes on him and he turned to meet her eyes; they were questioning, but not scary, as though curious about what he thought. She looked away, at the pictures on the mantle, and her mouth twitched into a lopsided grin.

"If you're wondering about that big, tough-looking Gear… that was my dad."

She turned the bottle over in her hands and took another drink, remaining silent and passing up what was obviously a fantastic opportunity to explain more about her somewhat mysterious past.

Adam also remained silent, braving another sip of the moonshine; he managed to keep this one down with only a few coughs.

"Good man."

He smiled under her praise, and had another bigger sip that was definitely more of a gulp. She held out her bottle to his and they toasted each other jokingly, beginning a long night of hard drinking and increasingly stupid competitions.


	12. Chapter 11: The Clock Tower

Adam woke up to a dark room that definitely wasn't his own with a splitting headache and his mouth tasting like goat-butt. Trying to remember what had happened to make his head hurt like that, an ear-splitting scream shattered the quiet atmosphere and made him groan.

He rolled over and sat up, peering around in the darkness to try and figure out what was making such a disturbing noise, thinking maybe it was the Sergeant's cat who'd hurt herself somehow. He peered up off the floor onto the couch and saw that his Sergeant seemed to be having some kind of seizure; she was twitching violently and screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Shit!"

He scrambled to his feet and shook her, trying to wake her up. She sat bolt upright, eyes flashing open, and he thought he'd succeeded until he noticed that her eyes were way back in her head and she appeared to be crying.

At any rate there were tears streaming from her crazy eyes, and Adam just stared at her in a panic. On the plus side she'd stopped screaming for the moment and appeared to be sleeping normally, so he calmed himself.

Her head lolled from side to side and ended up in the crook of his arm, leaning against his chest. Her red hair spilled onto his arm like blood, and he stared at it as he tried to figure out the colour.

In the very dark lighting it was almost brown and he couldn't shake the impression of bleeding. It was then that he noticed the coppery stench of blood and his eyes widened; her shirt was soaked!

Adam ripped it open and found cuts bleeding through some rough bandages, and swore. He ran to the kitchen and flicked on the light, shying away as his head started aching again. The boy found a medical kit and dragged the whole thing back to where Isolde was lying.

He pulled the soaked bandages off the cuts and discarded them, finding the antiseptic from the kit and cleaning the cuts. They weren't so bad that they needed stitches, but they were bleeding sluggishly. He counted five; they were neat, like knife cuts, and fairly shallow.

Adam stopped the bleeding and covered the cuts, wondering at Isolde's ability to sleep through something that would have caused him a lot of discomfort. Then he reasoned that she was a seasoned Gear, and small cuts like those he'd just dealt with would probably barely even register to a woman who broke bones on an almost daily basis.

Suddenly she groaned and opened her eyes, blearily staring at him and apparently trying to get her brain back into gear.

"Did we fuc-…?"

He completed the sentence ahead of her in his mind and quickly came to his own defence

"No! At least, I don't think so…"

She stared at him a little longer.

"Oh. So why am I shirtless?"

Adam blushed stubbornly and quickly blurted

"Because you were bleeding."

Isolde looked down and blinked at the bandages.

"Oh…"

She squinted at him for a minute, and then asked

"Do you want to? I don't mind and you're… _somewhat_ pleasing to the eye."

He blushed beet red and stuttered, and she giggled drunkenly.

"You're a lot cuter when you blush and stutter. Well? You didn't answer me."

He stared at her, trying to figure out if she was serious. She sighed and leaned her head back onto the couch, her eyes closing. She started to snore, and he flushed a little angrily.

"You can't just offer me that and then pass out!"

She rudely continued to sleep, and he groaned. His head started to split again and he leaned it onto the uncut part of her abdomen, listening to her heart beating evenly. Slowly Adam's eyes began to close…

"What the fuck?"

His eyes flew open and he stared up at Harmony. The older woman was leaning over him, her own eyes wide. The Sergeant was still asleep, and his head was still on her abdomen; there were bloody bandages on the floor, and empty moonshine bottles. He sat up with a groan; his neck had seized up during the night and he massaged it. Harmony checked the Sergeants' pulse and gently shook the other woman to wake her, eyes on Adam and the fresh bandages.

"Looks like you two had a fun night… whose blood is that?"

Adam continued to massage his neck and told her

"The Sergeants'… she was bleeding pretty badly from what looked like knife wounds."

Harmony lifted one of the bandages and hissed through her teeth.

"That's not good… the Sergeant runs with a pretty rough and tumble crowd when she's not on duty, but I don't think of them could, or would, do that to her. They must be from something else."

The two of them turned to stare at the still-slumbering Sergeant, both wondering who or what had cut her in such a strange manner. Now that he could see them in the light, Adam saw it was like a swipe from a hand with claws as sharp as razorblades.

Still the Sergeant slumbered on, and Harmony hauled Adam to his feet. He took a few hung-over steps towards the kitchen before his stomach started to roll and he knew he was going to throw up.

"Bathroom?"

He gasped the word weakly, and wordlessly Harmony pointed across the hallway. Adam stumbled into it and threw up into the toilet a couple of times. Suddenly Harmony was there with a cool wet towel, and she cleaned him up with the conscientiousness and deft swipes of an experienced mother.

Adam took the glass of water she held out to him with shaking hands, and sat on the edge of the bath to drink it. He lifted the glass and then looked past it, blinking in surprise at the wealth of the bathroom. Gold taps, marble floor, enormous bathtub, expensive murals… this bathroom, while covered in dust, made his fathers' private washroom look like a broom closet. He swished water around in his mouth a few times and spat it out before downing the rest of the glass, and looked at Harmony.

"Thankyou."

She smiled at him and then patted him on the head. "It's what I do."

Adam followed Harmony out of the bathroom carrying the glass of water. Harmony looked up the stairs as if lost in thought, before she asked

"How much do you know about the O'Connor's?"

Adam blinked.

"The Sergeant's family? … nothing. I didn't know they were important."

Harmony nodded.

"They're very important, but not many people know it. Isolde's the last in a long line of fiery red-heads who've been involved in human history since long before we came to Sera."

Harmony stared across the hall and up at a portrait of a breathtakingly beautiful woman.

"That's Isolde's mother, Diana… Isolde worshipped her mother."

The painting was out of place in the dusty house; it was the only thing that looked like it'd been cared for in the last twenty years. On the marble table below the portrait there were candles that had been melted down to stubs and a crystal vase of brown wilted flowers. Adam took a good look around the foyer then, taking in the wealth of the place in the morning light. Harmony surprised him by breaking the contemplative silence.

"I'm the reason Diana's dead."

Isolde opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling with the familiar friend of a nasty hangover settling comfortably on her shoulder. She scratched her stomach, but encountered bandages; that made her sit up, stifling a groan of pain, and examine the room. No obvious signs of warfare, only a pile of dirty, bloody bandages next to her house medical kit.

Something was missing from the scene, and the Sergeant tried to place it; that little squirt she'd dragged home to drink with, he was what was missing. She peered over the back of the couch and saw him standing in the foyer with Harmony, and Isolde stretched and coughed to let them know she was awake. Harmony came over and nodded to Isolde.

"Good to see you're awake. I brought coffee."

Isolde was on her feet in an instant, heading for the kitchen with purposeful strides. Harmony tidied the room before picking up the bloody bandages and looking at Adam.

"Just how bad were the cuts?"

Adam opened his mouth to reply but he was cut off by a loud series of impatient knocks on the front door.

Harmony ignored the loud groan of pain from the kitchen and a whimpering noise from Adam and opened the door to the armoured Gear.

"Ma'am!"

He saluted quickly, and didn't wait for her to respond.

"The Locust horde has been spotted to the west of the city! The general is ordering that every available Gear arm up and…"

He stared behind Harmony at Adam, and cleared his throat.

"Except you. The Chairman ordered you're to join him at HQ immediately."

Isolde appeared from the kitchen, struggling to pull on her Gear armour.

"Well it had to happen some time…"

She gulped down her second cup of coffee and clapped Adam on the shoulder.

"Sorry kiddo… better do as your daddy ordered."

Harmony stopped Isolde and pulled the younger woman's armour until it was sitting correctly, and the Sergeant grinned at her before running upstairs. Harmony stretched slightly and nodded to the two younger male Gears before she, too, dashed off down the street towards her own house.

The messenger shifted uncomfortably for a few seconds before saluting Adam and running off in the opposite direction to Harmony, leaving Adam alone. He sighed and looked up at the painting of Isolde's mother, and noticed that the woman had Isolde's mischievous eye-twinkle – or maybe it was the other way around. Either way it inspired a plan to begin to form in his mind, and he smiled up at the portrait before he ran off like a deer.

Isolde met up with Alpha F on the outskirts of the city, under what used to be an ancient clock tower. Years of skirmishing back and forth had reduced the giant structure to a location instead of an icon, its clock faces smashed and the hands motionless.

From childhood experience Isolde knew there was nothing inside it but a very, very old wooden staircase that wound up through the tower to the top, and she waited in its shadow for her squad to join her. They slowly trailed in looking mostly as awful (except in Megan's case, where she looked as perfectly-groomed as always) as Isolde felt and she ran her hand over her head.

The fuzz of her hair was longer than she remembered, and she scowled at it; she hated getting her hair cut by the Gear barbers because they always made fun of her for getting it cut so short. Claire was the first one to speak up; she looked tired.

"Do we know what's going on?"

Isolde shrugged and squinted at the barricades where there were other Gears vying for spots.

"There are reports of huge numbers of Locusts moving through the landscape out there… I don't buy it. It's a standard tactical move to make a fake thrust and force your enemy to cluster. Only problem is there's no way to know what's a fake and what's real."

She rubbed her head again, and muttered

"If only I could see the whole thing…"

It dawned on her and she slowly looked up at the clock tower above them.

"Bingo."

She was moving towards the door before any of the other women could figure out what she was talking about.

Adam hurried towards the barricades, feeling proud; his plan was totally genius! The pilfered Gear helmet obscured part of his vision, but it also hid his identity and allowed him to move amongst the masses of other helmeted Gears near the wall. By chance he was looking around when he spotted his squad; they were heading into an old rickety tower.

About to follow them, a heavy hand grabbed his shoulder and made him jump.

"Back on the front line, kid. We need every Gear here."

Adam looked the older Gear over; something about the man's face reminded him of Harmony.

"Pierce!"

The older Gear turned away to where his name was shouted from but he didn't let Adam go; he waved with his other hand, and then looked back at Adam again.

"Look, I can understand if you don't want to fight…"

Adam started to protest but he was cut off by an extremely loud, echoing gunshot from the top of the clock tower.

Isolde released the shell from her sniper rifle with a smile; the other women were ducking and covering their ears.

"What the hell?"

Megan was the first to react but Isolde ignored her, peering down the scope again.

"Nailed him. Nothing but head."

Harmony gave her a look, but gazed out of the tower at the ground below.

"I can't see multitudes of Locusts. Looks more like a skirmish party to me."

Isolde slung the weapon over her shoulder and joined her friend at the window.

"That's what it looks like to me… follow me, everyone."

She went to the stairs, and Claire asked

"So what are we going to do?"

Isolde concentrated on putting one foot after the other as she said

"Same thing we do every time the Locust attack, Claire. Ignore orders and do what needs to be done."

The Sergeant stepped up her speed and ended up hurtling down the creaky old stairs followed by her squad, and she ended up running out of the clock tower at a full sprint. Isolde heard some questioning shouts but she ignored them, settling into her Sergeant mindset to try and work out where she was going to go.

"_If I were a Locust leader… I would draw the enemy troops away and force them to cluster… check. Then I would attack the area as far away as possible… with skirmishes set up on the way. Therefore we'll be needed to clear the path first of all, and then to engage the enemy at their new location."_

She continued running, still thinking hard.

"_But where… not the most fortified wall. That'd be counterproductive on the Locusts' part. Not the worst wall… too obvious. A medium-bad. Perfect."_

The Sergeant quickly changed direction, hurdled over a broken wall and dragged her sniper rifled from its holster as she ran for the wall. Just like she'd expected, she could see pale shapes moving slowly towards the wall. Isolde looked up from the scope as an all-too-familiar smell hit her.

"Brumak."

She grimaced and checked her ammunition, hoping like hell she had enough explosive rounds to take down a Brumak. Harmony slammed in beside her and peered over the wall.

"You were right, Isolde… how do you do that?"

The Sergeant shrugged and picked off a Locust below.

"Just quick thinking… we're going to have to radio for backup."

She looked up at her squad, who'd all lined up along the wall, and she called

"Spread out! Cover as much ground as you can until I call for backup!"

The girls spread out, and Isolde touched her radio.

"ISOLDE!"

Harmony's yell came moments too late, and Isolde's eyes widened as a huge hook flew up – and caught her around the neck. She was pulled quickly towards the edge of the wall, clawing at the hook…


	13. Chapter 12: Here At the Wall

_I'm trying out a new formatting, which is why this chapter is so short… sorry._

Isolde O'Connor, Sergeant of Alpha F, COG, screamed soundlessly as her fingers scrabbled at the hook embedded in her throat. She was dragged quickly across the ground, her feet catching on rocks, until her back met with the parapet and her head snapped backwards. Something heavy was tugging on the bottom of the rope, and the hook dug further and further into her throat. Her spine creaking Isolde dropped a hand to her waist and grabbed her knife.

She sawed at the tough fibres as best she could as her vision started to darken from oxygen starvation; whatever was on the other end had stopped tugging and was now maintaining a steady pressure on her throat. More desperately she cut at the rope, her hands slick with either sweat or blood, and eventually the rope snapped. She heard a despairing wail from over the wall as she collapsed to her knees, her knife slipping from her wet fingers as she raised her hands to her throat again.

The hook had dug itself deeply into her flesh, and she fell sideways as her body started to seize up. The Sergeant's eyes rolled up in the back of her head as her blood spilled from her neck, and booted feet entered her vision. She looked up and her eyes widened as a Locust rifle barrel came into sharp focus. The Sergeant waited for the shot… and jumped when someone tackled the Locust to the ground with a crash.

If she could have turned her head she would have seen Adam bashing the Locust with his fists and helmet; he'd escaped Pierre's watchful eye and followed the women up onto the wall without their noticing. He furiously beat the Locust until it was leaking blood and tipped it over the wall, and then dashed to his Sergeant.

"Sergeant… Isolde!"

Her eyes were shut but they opened when he addressed her; she was very, very pale and there was a giant jagged hook embedded deep in her throat.

All of a sudden he was pulled backwards by strong arms. He fought as hard as he could, eyes only for the bleeding woman lying on the ground, until he realised that the people gathering around her were Gears; their armour had been stamped with the symbol for healing. The boy felt himself calming down, and he realised someone was talking soothingly to him as they held him back.

"Shh… it's alright… she'll be fine…"

After a few more minutes he was released, and he sank down against the wall. All around him Gears were swarming; a bunch of them were taking the Sergeant down off the wall. He dragged himself upright, intending to follow them, but Harmony caught him before he could descent and shook her head.

"No. I know a couple of those guys… they're part of a squad dedicated to researching weapon developments. Whatever's in Isolde's neck; it must be pretty fuckin' important."

The two of them watched the special-weapons Gears take Isolde, and both hoped like hell they weren't going to kill her trying to take that hook out.

_Let me know what you think of the new formatting style._


	14. Chapter 13: Lucky Break or Safe!

Peter 'Innocent' Murphy walked slowly along his favourite perch: the observation platform above the weapons testing floor. Today the room served a different purpose; emergency surgery theatre. The Gears on the lower level were wearing clean scrubs (for once) and gathered around a central table where another Gear lay.

Peter strolled over to watch them; they were fluttering around trying to save her life. He scowled; it was only the secrets that were embedded in the grunt's neck that he wanted! What did he care if she lived or died…? His eyes focused on what he could see of the girls' head, and they widened; there was no mistaking that hair colour.

"Colonel…"

He leaned back as his concentration was broken, and glared icily at the Gear who'd dared to approach him.

"What is it?"

The boy swallowed.

"The chairman's son is here. He says he's got authorisation to supervise the surgery and to make sure you don't kill Sergeant O'Connor."

Peter scowled at the boy for a while, trying to decide if it was worth taking the time to kill him. He decided against it; the boy was faithful, if nothing else, and god knew they needed faithful men right then. Realising the boy was waiting for an answer, he flapped a hand.

"The chairman's son is welcome to come and supervise from the observation platform... but when you bring him, be sure to take him through the 'clean' entrance. We don't need anyone knowing what kind of things we do here."

The boy saluted and ran off, and Peter turned his attention back to the surgery in front of him; his fingers were itching to go down there and rip the weapon out of the girls' throat already, but the surgeons were being very careful. Peter was soon joined by the chairman's fresh-faced youth of a son; the boy seemed unnaturally interested in the surroundings.

"Private Prescott, I presume."

The boy turned and nodded to the higher-ranked man, but his eyes were glued to the scene below and the quickly-working Gears gathered around the inert bleeding form on the table. Peter looked the boy over again, eyes probing; he looked far too young to command such respect. Adam had stubble, but not nearly enough to look manly; it was more like fuzz than hair. His hair would probably normally be professionally neat, but right then it was sticking out at all angles, and Peter immediately saw why; Adam kept running his hands through it. He also stank like blood, sweat and metal and Peter wrinkled his nose; such uncultured, rough-and-tumble smells had no place near his delicate sense of smell in this Mecca of the learned.

Adam turned and looked the colonel over, judging him. The other man wore an expression of distaste that Adam was sure was his usual expression, his nose wrinkled as though something smelly had walked under his nose. Suddenly Adam became aware that he stank pretty damn badly, especially compared with the perfectly-groomed, delicately-scented man next to him. The boy almost couldn't believe that this pansy of a man had developed close to twenty years of technology in under five years, but the proof was all around him – packed away under draping sheets, hiding them from the intruder.

"Colonel!"

One of the surgeons below held up the hook, and suddenly Peter was gone from Adam's side. The boy watched curiously the older man ran down some stairs and hurried out onto the floor, accepting the foreign material with something akin to reverence. He disappeared through a nearby doorway, but Adam's concentration went back onto the surgeons who were now scurrying around moving trays of basic surgical instruments back and trays of other, more sophisticated-looking instruments and strange bits of metal and plastic closer to the operating table. Adam found a folding chair and took a seat, watching them operate to save Isolde's life.

Hours dragged by, and Adam found himself getting sleepy. The building was warm, with the low hum of huge air filters underlying everything. The surgeons below were talking in low voices, the heart and breathing monitors were beeping steadily… Adam wrenched himself upright just as he was about to fall asleep, cursing himself for getting so complacent. This was the Sergeant's life at stake, goddammit, and he was going to stay awake!

Instead of sitting down again Adam started prowling, taking slow circuits of the observation floor. Idly he gazed through a window into a lab and saw Gears in white coats arguing. The lab was soundproofed, so he didn't know what they were arguing about; but from the looks of it, things were going to get heated very quickly. Suddenly someone else entered the room, and the two antagonists shut up immediately. The woman moved sensuously over to the two, apparently quietly asking what was going on. One of them explained, and the woman considered for a moment. She went over to some papers on a desk and rummaged, and then held one up. Both coated Gears grabbed for it, but she tore the paper in two and discarded it.

Adam watched the paper flutter to the ground, and when he looked up again the woman was right next to the glass staring back at him curiously. He noticed she looked a lot like Megan but much more coldly beautiful, and backed away. He gave a curt nod, heart pounding, and scurried back to his former position above the surgeons. The boy could feel her eyes boring into his back but didn't look up; he couldn't stand to meet her dark, probing eyes again.

Under his watchful eye, the surgeons reconstructed Isolde's wrecked throat. When the final stitch was in, they removed their gloves, cleared away the instruments, and eventually had a big round of high-fives. The main surgeon pulled his mask off and looked up at Adam.

"We're going to be transferring her to the hospital now… I'm assuming you want to come along."

Adam nodded and went back out the door he'd come in through, where the Gear who'd brought him through in the first place was gently snoring. He tapped the other guy on the shoulder and stepped back as he woke with a start, and then leaped to his feet with an apologetic look on his face. Adam shrugged and gestured towards the door; the other Gear obligingly swiped his access card and followed Adam through the automatic doors, presumably to make sure he got out without stealing anything.

Adam thanked the other Gear and the young man smiled before retreating back into the building and Adam turned and stretched in the alarmingly-bright light. He squinted up at the light, expecting it to be the sun, and noticed instead the light was coming from various strategically-placed floodlights; he was very much surprised to find that it was dark.

Near the big metal gates, the surgeon-Gears were wheeling Isolde towards the back of a medical transport vehicle, and Adam ran over to them. He jumped into the transport and helped them carry Isolde into it, and then he took a seat next to her. One of the surgeon-Gears joined him, and the doors were closed. As the engine started to rumble and they started to move, Adam stared at Isolde's throat; the stitches were bare and bleeding a little, but there was very little evidence that it'd been cut. The surgeons had done a good job.

"You're quite a dedicated lover."

The surgeon's voice surprised him, and he raised his eyes to the other Gears' face. It was a few more seconds before he realised what the surgeon had said, and he went bright red.

"I'm not her l-lover… she's my Sergeant."

The surgeon smiled and nodded but Adam could practically hear his cynical thoughts.

"_Sure__ you're not, kid. No-one's that dedicated to a woman Sergeant unless they're fucking."_

Adam blushed again and turned back to Isolde, but his mind stubbornly continued on imagining the surgeon's thoughts.

"_Like to get me some of that… lucky kid. Wish I had a hot female commanding officer, instead of that creepy freak. This one's damn fine… What I wouldn't do to he-"_

The truck jolted, and thankfully his mind was also jolted out of imagining the surgeon's thoughts. To stop them going back he radioed Harmony, who was helping supervise a squad of young Gears-in-training on their first mission; cleaning up.

"Harmony… they're transferring Isolde to the normal hospital now. It looks like the surgery was a success… she's alive, at least."

"_Oh that's great news! I'd hate to have to get used to a new commanding officer."_

Harmony's joking tone sounded much more relieved than her words, and Adam smiled.

"I'll stay with her tonight… are you about done babysitting?"

Harmony laughed.

"_The kids were having a field day. There was lots of squealing going on because a couple of the older ones cut some body parts off and chased the younger ones around with them… thanks for looking after Isolde, Adam."_

Adam shrugged and looked again at the still-unconscious Sergeant.

"It's no trouble… I was glad to do it. Will you come to the hospital?"

Harmony was quiet for a little while, then…

"_Yeah. I'll be along as soon as I can. Take good care of the Sergeant, Adam."_

Adam frowned; it seemed like Harmony meant more than taking care of Isolde while she was down and out. Then he shrugged again; reading too much into innocent statements was a bad habit of his. He looked up and out of the windscreen, taking in the visage of the hospital as they approached, then he looked back at his Sergeant and took her hand.

"It's all gonna be alright, Sergeant."

_Still playing with my new formatting; I think it looks good, but then I'm biased._


	15. Chapter 14: Girl Talk

Private Adam Prescott was asleep in a chair beside his Sergeant's bed, his mouth hanging open a little as he snored gently. That was the first sound Isolde heard when she finally came-to out of the pain killer-induced haze.

She was incredibly disorientated; the white walls and sheets of the hospital just didn't seem to add up in her fuzzy brain, and she curiously stared at the bed, wondering why she was there.

Adam snorted a little and startled himself awake, and he sat up with a grim look of disgust on his face as he tasted his mouth. His eyes focused on Isolde and he sat up straight.

"Sergeant…"

She opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out and her eyes widened in panic. Adam jumped up and patted her hand, quickly telling her

"Don't try to speak. Your vocal cords haven't quite reconnected yet… the doctors said a few days, and that's with localised steroid injections."

Isolde stared at him a little hopelessly; _days_ without being able to talk? She felt so handicapped! Suddenly another thought dawned on her, and she looked around for Harmony. Adam saw the look and sighed.

"She was here. They all were. But they had stuff to do… they were needed to clean out a section of the forest."

He smirked then.

"The general put them under the command of some Lieutenant from another squad. He came to collect them, and it took most of the doctors and visiting Gears in the hospital to stop them fighting and get them outside."

Isolde grinned, but then looked questioningly at him. He couldn't meet her eyes as he dropped his voice and lied.

"Dad said I couldn't go out, _again_. So I thought I'd be better off sitting here until you woke up so you didn't go into a blind panic at being alone and unable to talk."

Isolde smacked him over the back of the head for lying. He looked up and searched her eyes as she glared at them; they softened a little as he watched, and she almost smiled. Before it could get too awkward a doctor in a white coat and greasy hair came by and poked his head in.

"So the dear sergeant's awake at last… those guys in the research labs did a great job in patching you up. I'm just on the way to see another patient, but I'll come back and tell you what I told your friends earlier about our predictions."

The man smiled in an oily way and walked off, and Isolde decided that she didn't like him. When she looked back at Adam he was watching her but he looked away quickly with a blush on his face; she would have given any amount of money to know what he was thinking.

The boy dashsed over to a table and grabbed a thermos. He opened it and the smell of coffee made her sit up and take notice.

"Compliments of Harmony and the girls."

The drink wasn't as hot or strong as she liked it, but when she swallowed a mouthful and nearly screamed (to the best of her limited vocal abilities) in pain, she was grateful that it wasn't. She forced herself to finish the cup, enduring the pain, and let Adam fill it a second time.

The oily doctor came by again with his greasy ingratiating smile still in place. He made some pretense of checking Isolde's chart, apparently only as a time-filler, as his watery eyes moved between the sergeant in the bed and the private standing almost too-attentively next to her.

"Well Sergeant, I have to say it's all looking pretty good. Upon initial examination, the Research boys seem to have completely reconstructed your throat using plastic pipes. They left a sample with us, and according to them we can melt it without any adverse affects to you when we decide that your throat is strong enough to stay up on its own."

She crossed her arms, waiting for the bad news, and the oily doctor cleared his throat.

"The bad news is you'll have to endure months of vocal therapy to regain your voice. Your vocal cords were severed completely and although they've already started healing thanks to some rather special steroids, courtesy again of the boys in Research, you're advised to take it slowly."

Adam laughed then, and the doctor turned his watery stare on the boy. The private cleared his throat.

"As far as I can tell, the sergeant doesn't do anything slowly. It's always a race."

She nodded with a smirk for the doctor, and the man shrugged. "I can only advise. I can't order you to take it slowly. But just remember that the sooner you start pushing, the more chance there'll be that you'll break something important. And I don't think the Research boys will spring for another round of reconstructive surgery."

He folded the chart and smiled at the pair of them before leaving the room. Isolde sighed and grabbed a nearby hand-mirror, working a finger under the bandages on her neck to have a look at the damage. She managed to get the bandages down and stared at her throat in disbelief; there were stitches, of course, and a rather lovely long jagged scar that she could brag about later, but other than that there was nothing there.

"I know. I was expecting a lot more… well… painful looking bits."

Isolde looked up and smiled at her squad; they were splattered in some indescribable muck and gore, and they all looked tired. Harmony, the one who had spoken, walked over and hugged Isolde.

"Don't you ever fucking scare me like that again, you hear?"

The other members of the squad all came over and joined the hug. Adam got a little rush of blood to his head and also joined in, and the girls laughed at him. Embarrassed he backed off and stared out the window until the girls were done hugging and stepped back to chat.

They all started to talk at once, laughing and chattering like a flock of sparrows. Adam stayed by the window, a little overwhelmed; it was the first time he'd heard them all talking at once and the noise was incredible. Suddenly one of them said something he couldn't quite hear but he was sure he heard his name and they all started giggling madly and staring at him, and he felt very uncomfortable. Harmony then cleared her throat and looked Adam over.

"So Adam… what did the doctor say?"

He looked around at the girls and saw they were all watching him intently, and he shuffled his feet a little.

"He said that she'd be alright soon, but she'd need vocal therapy to get her voice back."

Suddenly there was a loud rasping noise, and they all turned to stare at Isolde in shock; she was laughing. She made some helpless gestures, but ended up flapping her hand in dismissal and continued laughing. She stopped and wiped her eyes.

"That's laughable."

They all stared at her; her voice was strained but unmistakable. She dragged herself out of bed and stretched, looking around for clothing.

"Well come on you lazy assholes. We have a mission to complete."

She pulled on her clothes and headed for the door, ignoring the fact that everyone was staring at her stunned.

* * *

_Was this boring? I think it's boring. Which is why it's not longer._


	16. Chapter 15: Not on the List

Isolde's manner of walking through the hospital was not exactly what Adam would have called 'stealthy'. Despite the fact she was meant to be sneaking out, she walked calmly through the halls with no hint of suspicious activity, even nodding to several of the doctors and nurses who walked past.

Not truly believing his eyes, Adam watched her walk out across the foyer area and out of the front door; no one tried to stop her. He paused for a moment and then ran after her.

"How'd you do that?"

Isolde looked around at him in surprise

"Do what? Oh you mean get out of the hospital… easy enough. You just walk confidently and casually, and people don't think you're not meant to be leaving."

Adam shook his head; it couldn't be that simple. But Isolde was already walking away, heading for where her squad was gathered checking their equipment, and he followed her like a puppy.

She accepted her Lancer and a powerful-looking sniper rifle from Harmony, and checked them both.

"Alright; we're going to the vehicle compound to pick up a Centaur, because I don't think I want to walk. Let me do the talking. There won't be any orders to give us the vehicle, but just go along with what I say and try not to look too surprised."

She moved swiftly and her squad followed her. They walked unchallenged into the vehicle compound and headed for a fully-equipped Centaur. That was as far as they got as a self-important private ran over to them waving a clipboard full of paper, calling as he ran

"Excuse me! This vehicle's not on the list!"

Isolde turned to him and gave him her best cold-as-ice stare.

"What do you mean, 'not on the list'? My orders came from the tip-top of the goddamn pile."

The boy wavered a little under her adder stare, but bravely straightened his spine.

"It's not… on the list… who are you?"

Isolde sighed and leaned over, grabbing the boy's clipboard to pull it towards her. He kept hold of it, and she perused the list at her own leisure as behind her the squad climbed into the Centaur. She pushed the clipboard down with a finger, glaring at the boy again.

"This list? It's wrong. We got orders from Chairman Prescott himself."

She shrugged and tapped the clipboard forcefully.

"Go and call a member of the general staff. Any of them will tell you we've been assigned a vehicle."

The boy glared at her, obviously not liking her flippant manner, but he backed away and walked off towards the site office muttering to himself. Once he was gone Isolde nodded to Harmony, who jabbed the start button.

"Off we go…"

She started to drive out of the compound at top speed, hearing yells behind her.

"_**COME BACK HERE!" **_

Harmony spun the vehicle around a little and let the passenger door swing open; Isolde jumped and grabbed onto the strap embedded into the roof. The sergeant waved cheerily at the open-mouthed private who was holding a phone, and then ducked into the cabin. The door clicked shut and they were off, heading through the safety checkpoints and eventually speeding off through the woods.


	17. Chapter 16: Onward Once More

Adam watched his fellow Gears perform their various pre-combat rituals, fascinated. Alice, the short mousy Gear, was pulling a string of ancient beads through her fingers with her eyes closed as her lips silently moved. Megan, the hot dark-haired lesbian Gear, was brushing her hair with a pocket hairbrush. As he watched, she folded it away and started unnecessarily re-applying her makeup, her hands shaking a little.

Claire was eating something out of a bag; it turned out they were red-and-white striped peppermints. Adam looked towards the windscreen and saw that Isolde was asleep with her head leaning against the window; her bandage had slipped a little and her stitches were visible. Suddenly Megan looked over at Claire.

"I didn't see you saying your regular passionate goodbye to darling Derek… do we not like him anymore?"

Claire shrugged.

"He was gorgeous but I had to break up with him. He must have liked the stories I told him about being a Gear so much that he joined up. Stupid idiot."

Megan rolled her eyes.

"Men… but you're severely limiting yourself by not dating Gears."

Claire shrugged again, putting another striped peppermint into her mouth.

"I don't date Gears. It's impossible to be professional when you know what they look like naked."

Megan smirked.

"How about when we get back I show you the wonders of two girls being together?"

Claire glared at her friend and said nothing, her cheeks a little red. Megan laughed at her and went back to lining her lips.

Alice finished rolling her beads between her fingertips and tucked them away, smiling at Adam. The boy smiled back, feeling a little awkward without the fiery red-headed sergeant to smooth relations over. Without warning, Megan spoke to him.

"So Adam; any girls you like?"

The boy remained silent for a little bit, wondering how best to answer the woman's question. Then he stayed silent, unable to think of what to say.

Claire, however, took the hint and leaned over a little.

"Didn't you stay with the sergeant the night before she got her throat ripped, drinking her private moonshine together?"

The other girls laughed and Adam blushed stubbornly. Alice giggled as she poked him.

"He's blushing! That's so cute!"

The three subsided into peals of girlish laughter again as he blushed more. The merriment faded slowly until Claire leaned forward a little again.

"She's a very attractive woman, Adam. But I think the question in everyone's minds is… did you two fu-"

The Centaur jolted loudly over a particularly nasty patch of gravel, and Harmony called back to them.

"Stop teasing the rook! Just because I walked in on the two of them in a compromising position…"

The girls laughed again and Adam wished very much he could open the door of the Centaur and throw himself out of the fast-moving vehicle. Taking his life in his hands, he ventured

"Shouldn't you be careful what you say? After all, the sergeant IS in the vehicle with us."

Megan shrugged.

"Once she's asleep, she's dead to the world. We're safe; unless she's listening in her sleep… I remember one time we were camped out for like, three weeks… she went to sleep and stayed asleep through two waves of Locusts before we managed to get her awake. Boy was she grumpy when she woke up! But I don't think she slept for the next 48 hours."

The girls all smiled at each other, and Adam found himself wanting to hear more. Alice was the one who noticed they had a captive audience of one, and leaned back in her seat.

"Yep… we've done a lot of stuff over the years that, for one reason or another, we were the only ones who could do it."

Megan chose to interject then.

"Nothing like a woman's touch to get the job done. Remember that nest of tickers that were breeding like crazy? One of the first things we ever did together. Had to clean out the whole damn house."

Claire glared teasingly at her friend.

"I remember you chickening out and hiding in the ATV so you didn't get tick goop in your hair. I think the happiest person there was the sergeant though. She does love to get dirty and covered in miscellaneous gunk."

Alice laughed then.

"Remember we went out afterwards? The place cleared out cos of the smell and we had the whole bar to ourselves that night. I think I even remember Claire and the sergeant both getting drunk enough to sing karaoke."

They all drifted off into their own memories, smiling fondly, as Adam tried to imagine Isolde singing karaoke. Megan broke the memory-heavy silence again.

"Remember that gorgeous pilot who got shot down trying to pick us up from a hot zone… the sergeant carrying her all the way to a better LZ for a second Raven, over her shoulder?"

The girls nodded at each other again, and Claire grinned.

"That 'friendly' match we played against the guys from Beta. Those boys were so unhappy when they lost…"

Alice took up the thread of the story.

"It's not our fault they don't know how to play Thrashball like real men. We were just lucky that Harmony was on our side; she's quite a strong player, isn't she?"

Megan smiled prettily.

"Strong isn't the word I'd use. Vicious? Yep. Doesn't consider losing an option? That too. Suicidal? Absolutely… but I'm glad that we finished the whole ordeal on good terms with them. The sergeants' idea of taking them out for coffee to apologise afterwards helped smooth over their ruffled feathers. And their broken bones."

Alice sighed.

"We should play Thrashball again. Not against Delta!"

She waved her hands, and the other girls shuddered. Claire shook her head violently.

"Hell no! Do you want to kill us? Even Harmony couldn't take Augustus Cole!"

Harmony, who'd obviously been listening from the front seat, called back

"My eldest Pierce was good friends with Augustus. They used to play Thrashball together with my middle son Tobias and little Gareth in the fields… I had to deal with my fair share of bloody noses, fractured arms and tearful tantrums over the score. He and his mother used to come over every week and the boys would take off to play while we baked."

The girls were stunned into silence by this. Adam remained quiet too, considering the implications. The Centaur was plunged into an awkward silence and they continued on, lurching through the forests at a dangerous speed.

Finally Claire recovered and leaned forwards.

"You knew Augustus Cole as a child? That guy was like… my Thrashball hero! He's a legend! If I ever met him I would probably faint!"

Adam saw Harmony smile.

"He's not that bad. He bathes fairly regularly."

Obviously not getting the joke, Claire continued.

"Augustus Cole is the reason why I started playing Thrashball for my high school team. We won the championship and I even got offered a deal for the women's league… but I joined the Gears instead, mainly because no one had time for Thrashball after E-Day and that motherfucking bastard Prescott's edict..."

She looked quickly at Adam and grinned apologetically.

"Sorry kid. I keep forgetting you're not just another Gear."

Adam shrugged.

"I've heard my father called worse. But I agree with you… which is why he let me join the Gears. I think he's hoping I'll get killed off and he'll be able to groom someone else as his successor."

He saw Harmony shake her head.

"That's sad… that a father would want his child dead for having an opinion of their own…"

The discussion was ended when Harmony slammed on the brakes.

"End of the line, duckies… there's no way we can get this beast through those trees. It's on foot from here."

Alice, sitting closest to the door, opened it and jumped out. Immediately she shivered.

"It's so cold!"

The others joined her outside, stretching. Isolde jumped out of the passenger side, looking sleepy.

"My butt went to sleep along with the rest of me... are we there?"

Harmony rested her Gnasher on her shoulder and indicated the barrier of trees with her free hand.

"Yonder."

Isolde yawned and checked her Lancer.

"Then onwards once more… Alpha-F, form up and move out."

* * *

_Edit: I just noticed that Harmony's middle son had the same name as the guy Claire was dating... fixed now. They're not the same guy._


	18. Chapter 17: Sergeant and Corporal

The woods were eerily quiet as the squad moved through them, the silence pressing down on them like a thick blanket. Every twig broken under their boots made them jump, and all of them were fingering their triggers nervously. Their progress slowed dramatically as they tried to stop themselves from breaking twigs and rustling little patches of leaves, until Isolde (who'd moved to the back of the group) grabbed a large dry branch and cracked it loudly over her knee.

Everyone else jumped and turned to point their weapons at her, but they lowered them immediately and she smiled at them.

"Nothing like a little tension breaker."

She strode forwards again, taking the lead once more as she walked confidently onward through the trees. Automatically she sought out the easiest way through the growth since there wasn't a path, and pushing pointlessly through thick undergrowth would have tired them all out when they might need their energy later.

Suddenly a low, weird groan filtered through the trees and the girls (and guy) looked at each other. Isolde knew that sound; someone was gravely wounded out there in the woods. She used hand-signals to tell her squad to wait there and keep their eyes peeled for any suspicious activity, while she took Adam to find the source of the noise.

As the pair travelled through the woods alone, Isolde spoke to him in a very low whisper.

"Were the others giving you a hard time?"

He shrugged as she continued.

"They're just trying to get used to having a male squad member. It's been 'us girls' for so long they don't quite know how to act."

Adam nodded and was about to say something when she held up a finger to her lips and pointed; in a small clearing ahead there was the glint of sun on metal.

Instead of moving quickly to the source of the shine, Isolde took a few quick turns around the edge small clearing to make sure they were alone and not about to be caught in a trap before moving into it. She signalled Adam to keep watch while she knelt beside the source of the shine; a Gear, both legs sheared off above the knee so only stubs of bone were left.

He obviously felt her hands on him as she searched him for ID and he started to struggle. She quickly soothed him.

"Gently, gently soldier… I'm Sergeant Isolde of Alpha-F. Don't panic, I'm going to take your helmet off, ok?"

Adam couldn't help but watch his sergeant lean up and quickly work her slender fingers under the clasp that held the Gear helmet on the man's head. It took some work to open but she managed it and slid the helmet up.

The young man was very, very pale and his nose had obviously been broken. His eyes were glassy with fever and his breathing was ragged; apparently he was happy to have his helmet off because he gulped down huge lungfuls of the cold air.

Isolde looked at him hard for a moment, as if trying to place him, and then pulled her water bottle out for him. She held it to his lips and he drank greedily.

"Slowly! Slowly…"

He swallowed and obeyed, apparently getting the strength to move his arms a bit. Isolde tucked her water bottle away again and looked at Adam.

"Aren't you meant to be keeping an eye out so we don't get shot?"

He straightened, embarrassed that he'd been caught watching the exchange, and looked up again to watch the surrounding woods once more.

The sergeant smiled a little at him and ran her fingers through her ever-lengthening hair before she moved down and took a look at the man's injuries. The wounds were sealed, as though they'd been cauterised, but the actual cuts to the flesh were ragged, like savage bite marks. The phenomenon was quite peculiar, and she couldn't help but reach out and move the bone stumps a little.

The man hissed in pain and Isolde withdrew her hand to start feeling around for bandages. She started to bandage the ends of his legs up unnecessarily; it was more for the aesthetic quality than to stop any bleeding. She found she didn't have quite enough bandages for both, and started unwinding her own bandage from around her neck.

The man watched her curiously in a lucid sort of way; when she was done tying the bandages around his stumps she looked up to meet his eyes. Still looking at him, she reached a finger to her ear and radioed the rest of her squad.

"Alpha-F 2. We've located one male Gear, severely injured…"

She took her finger from her ear and asked the Gear "what squad?"

He shook his head a little and frowned. "Foxtrot…"

Isolde repeated into her radio.

"… from Foxtrot."

She squashed a smile as she heard Claire ask

_"Is he cute?" _

"I don't see why it would matter what he looks like, private. We're bringing him back with us. O'Connor, out."

Although she removed her finger from her ear, she still heard Claire sigh.

"_That means he's not cute or she's got dibs. Shame."_

Shrugging it off, Isolde motioned to Adam; he'd been very determinedly watching the woods but her motion caught his eye and he turned to join them.

"You'll have to carry him. He's too heavy for me… you and Harmony can share."

Adam looked over the other male Gear and shrugged, kneeling down in front of him. Somehow the two mobile Gears were able to get the third one onto Adam's back and tied him there so he wouldn't get tired and fall off. Adam stood still for a moment, experimenting with the weight distribution, before he nodded and Isolde led the way back to the main group.

The girls crowded around the new Gear while Harmony looked at Isolde questioningly; the new man was only going to weigh them down. The sergeant shrugged.

"Never leave a man behind. Even if they are from Foxtrot… we're behind schedule."

The sergeant took off at a jog, and Harmony was heard to mutter

"We HAD a schedule?"

The squad followed her at a jog, clustering a little around the injured Gear to protect Adam in case of attack; the boy wouldn't be able to fight back as readily with another fully-grown man on his back.

After twenty minutes Isolde slowed to a walk again; the trees were starting to close in and made it harder to run. She pulled back and let Harmony take point so she could talk to the injured Gear; the man appeared to be sleeping but he opened his eyes and looked at her when she cleared her throat.

"I forgot to ask your name earlier."

He smiled a little.

"Corporal Damien Steel, ma'am, from Foxtrot squad."

Isolde grinned back.

"Corporal Steel?"

The man smiled wider.

"Yes ma'am. It's gung-ho, I know."

Isolde seemed to digest this for a little while, remaining silent; behind her, Alice banged the back of her hand on Megan's breastplate to get her attention.

"Is it just me or is the sergeant flirting with Cutie No-Legs?"

Megan looked closer at the two of them and nodded with evil grin.

Finally Isolde seemed to decide to share with 'Cutie No-Legs' their mission objective.

"Since you seem to be tagging along with us, you might as well know we're checking out some kind of underground bunker. Harmony, that's the older lady leading us… her youngest son nearly got himself killed investigating what we're going to look at. The tight-arses up top decided that they needed to send along someone a bit… well… better than Beta five."

Steel stared at her, and then started struggling. Adam was nearly pulled over backwards as the weight shifted around and he was forced to take a few steps back, leaning forwards as he tried to even the weight distribution out again. Isolde lunged forwards and grabbed onto Adam, stopping him falling over as Steel settled down again.

"You can't go in there! I don't know what's down there but it'll kill all of you… it ate my legs!"

Everyone except Adam looked at the stumps of his legs. Isolde cleared her throat.

"I'm sorry about your legs, but we have to get this done. I escaped hospital after major surgery to go on this mission."

The sergeant and the corporal stared at each other; one of them determined and the other terrified. Finally Steel looked away.

"I accept that you have a mission. Will you leave me somewhere so I don't weigh you down?"

They decided to leave him high in a tree with a Lancer. Isolde looked back and up at him as they left, and she saw him wave. She waved back and turned around, feeling his eyes bore into her back. Megan nudged the sergeant.

"Were you flirting with him?"

Adam, now freed from Steel's weight, could turn a little and see Isolde go a bit red.

"Well… he's going to be decommissioned because of his legs… I mean no!"

She broke into a run again, leading them away and heading deeper into the forest.

"Goddamn how far back IS this place?"

Almost exactly after she said it, the sergeant had to stop as a smallish building suddenly appeared eerily out of the forest. Isolde immediately motioned for her squad to surround the place, guns at the ready; she moved towards the door but paused as a foul stench hit her square in the face like a blunt metal object.

"Ugh…!"

The others, determining that there was no immediate threat, lowered their weapons and covered their mouths and noses; Isolde saw their eyes start to water. She cleared her throat and looked at Harmony.

"Wish I'd stolen Steel's helmet… why aren't you bothered?"

The older woman shrugged.

"I'm the mother of three boys. There's no stench I can't handle now."

The comment made the sergeant smirk as she flicked on her shoulder-lights and headed for the door opening, the rest of the squad following suit. Isolde turned and looked at Megan, who was obviously freaking out already; the woman didn't like enclosed spaces.

"Megan I want you to stay here and be our rearguard. Whatever's in there might have friends… radio if you get into trouble."

Megan nodded looking thankful and saluted. Isolde saluted back and took a deep breath, heading into the dark smelly building interior with an air of confidence that she didn't really feel. Her squad followed her, their lights poking through the heavy darkness like fingers as they moved around. The sergeant looked through another doorway… and immediately recoiled back as something huge and dark descended on her.


	19. Chapter 18: Farewell, My Friend

Isolde ducked and rolled, her Lancer coming up and her finger squeezing the trigger into the halfway position. Her shoulder lights illuminated her attacker; a big piece of meat hanging from a hook. The sergeant rose with a sigh and a groan and poked the meat with her Lancer barrel, blinking as flies swarmed around it now it'd stopped swinging violently.

The sergeant swung around to look into the rest of the shed; the place was filled with flies and rotting meat. Feeling the bile rise in her throat Isolde moved through the shed to the back where a change of sound beneath her boots made her slow and turn.

"Found the trapdoor."

Her squad gathered and Harmony leaned down to brush away the dust and debris that had settled onto the wood. Adam moved behind it and pulled the trapdoor open, leaning over to stare down into the dark abyss.

"Ladies first…"

Isolde punched him in the arm and sat at the edge of the trap door, feeling around for a ladder or some stairs. Her foot contacted with something wooden and she tested it briefly.

"Wish me luck."

Her easy grin was betrayed by the shaking of her hands, but she steeled herself and felt for the next step; descending into absolute darkness was a slice of her own personal hell. With a sharp inhale the captain turned and climbed down the ladder, trying her very best to control the panic rising with every step.

She made it to the bottom and immediately turned, eyes scanning the tiny cones of light given off by her personal lights. A heavy thump next to her made her jump but it was just Harmony, who also turned and looked around.

"Could have used a flashlight…"

Isolde smiled weakly and forced herself to move away from the ladder, telling herself that it was stupid for someone like her to be afraid of the dark. Her lights barely penetrated the thick darkness; no light filtered down from above. Her squad moved out behind her, following her through the darkness.

"It stinks down here. Smells like an infected wound."

Alice's voice echoed strangely and Isolde glanced up at the invisible ceiling for a second as she tried not to imagine how far the girl's voice would be travelling. A snarl in what was apparently the distance made everyone freeze, automatically forming a circle to cover all angles with light.

Nothing came at them, and so the circle dissolved and the girls and boy continued to investigate down the tunnel. Another snarl, closer this time, echoed down towards them.

"I don't think we're alone. Claire, take point. Try to be quiet."

The little Gear saluted quickly and moved down the tunnel ahead of them, her small feet silent. Isolde motioned for her squad to wait, and blinked in surprise when Claire returned.

"There's a big steel vault door ahead. Looks pre-Emergence."

Isolde nodded to herself and headed up the tunnel; the door was intimidating in the tiny cones of light with a keypad protruding from the left side. The sergeant banged a fist against the door and winced when it clanged louder than expected; another nasty snarl echoed from behind the door.

"Someone's cranky."

Isolde gave Harmony a look; the older woman's quips were starting to annoy her a little. The sergeant told herself that it was just the enclosing darkness making her tetchy and moved to examine the keypad.

It had been used recently, with several of the keys showing signs of repeated use. The sergeant started pushing the buttons in an attempt to hack the code with sheer luck, and the keypad beeped angrily at her.

"Sergeant?"

Harmony pulled Isolde out of the way and smashed the keypad with her fist. The door opened and the older lady grinned.

"Us old relics need a light touch."

The corridor beyond was barely lit but it was enough for the squad's dark adjusted eyes. The stench was horrendous, and the light revealed a series of open metal doors with view ports along the walls. Isolde looked in the first open door and shied away; it was full of dark blood, more blood than a human could possibly have.

"What the fuck is going on here…"

Something further along the tunnel moved at the sound of the sergeant's voice. She froze and stared at the giant shape that snuffled and grunted, and lowered her voice to near-silence.

"Back. Up. Now."

The shape turned to face them; a gigantic Berserker, at least four times the size of a regular one. Even at that distance Isolde could see its nostrils flaring, scenting them. She heard her squad back up and moved back too, keeping her Lancer pointed at the Berserker, although she knew that the gun would be no use against such a big bitch.

Isolde backed up and walked into something; Harmony was staying put.

"What are you doing?"

Harmony pushed Isolde behind her, and glanced at her captain.

"That thing tried to kill my son, Izzy. And a lot of people are going to die otherwise."

Isolde stared at her oldest friend, not believing what she was seeing. "Harmony…"

The old woman smiled, her lined face wrinkling, and she started to push Isolde back towards the door. Silently she turned her back on the huge Berserker, putting a hand on the huge steel door as the other pulled out and held a string of grenades the sergeant hadn't known she was carrying.

"Live a good life, Isolde. Get married. Adopt some babies. Get fat, live long, and die old."

She removed her Gear tags and tossed them to Isolde. Slowly she closed the door on the squad, and it locked. Isolde stood in shock, staring at the huge steel death sentence that had just shut between her oldest friend and herself. She heard the huge roar of the mutant Berserker and Harmony's reply yell and found herself pounding on the door; Harmony had been a fixture in her life for as long as she remembered. Alice and Claire grabbed their sergeant before she hurt herself on the door, but Isolde struggled against them.

"I am NOT going to let her die! LET ME THE FUCK GO YOU FUCKING CUNTS OR I'LL KILL YOU!"

The door didn't manage to muffle the explosion very much, and the squad hit the deck as the ceiling spat rocks at them. Isolde got hit in the face but she barely felt it; she scrambled to her feet, ignoring the pain, and stumbled towards the door again; the keypad was dark, inactive, and the door remained sealed no matter how hard she punched it.

"HARMONY!"

Her scream echoed down the tunnel behind her, but there was no answer from beyond the door. The sergeant leaned her ear against the steel, listening as hard as she could for anything at all. There was nothing but silence beyond it.

More rocks spattered down from above, and Adam looked around at his squad; no one else was going to take charge. Quickly he regained his feet and grabbed Harmony's tags, pocketing them without looking, and pulled Alice upright.

"On your feet, soldier."

He left her to help Claire up, and grabbed Isolde.

"Sergeant. Come on we have to get out of here, this place is going to come down on top of us."

Isolde shrugged him off, tears streaming openly down her face as she continued to press her ear to the door, and the boy bit his lip. He grabbed her again, pulling her close, and she clung to him.

"I'm never going to leave you."

He kept his voice quiet, not wanting the other girls to hear, and the sergeant looked up at him; he gazed down at her and saw that vulnerable little girl he'd seen in the picture on the mantle in her house. She seemed incapable of functioning right then and Adam pulled her along the corridor, heading for the exit, following their other squad members.

The tunnel collapsed behind them just as Adam pulled Isolde out of the hole; the rubble reached up to the base of the trapdoor. The sergeant stared down at that hole, tears still falling from her eyes as she contemplated her friends' tomb, and Adam took her hand.

"Sergeant… Isolde. We need to report back."

She didn't seem to care anymore, and buried her face in Adam's chest to weep. They stood there for long minutes with Isolde crying onto Adam, but eventually the sergeant pushed the boy away and wiped her face. She turned on her heel and marched determinedly out the door, leaving her subordinates and her tears in her wake.


	20. Chapter 19: The corporal on the corpse

Isolde wished for the numbness she was used to. Whenever she'd lost a comrade it had been in the heat of glorious battle and her emotions had always been numbed by the need to keep fighting, the need to live: now she felt every input as pain, every tiny jolt and every bird singing in the trees, every creak from her armour and every beat her heart pumped.

"Sergeant."

The word was almost too painful to hear: she had a name, goddammit, a name given to her by Harmony. Obedient to the last she stopped, even though she just wanted to keep walking, to walk forever and just drop dead without reaching her destination. She turned to see the corporal on the ground: he'd been shaken loose from the tree and was sitting triumphantly on the corpse of a dead Locust grunt.

Looking around she found that her squad was way back: she must have been running. It took her a few moments to come back to herself, and she rubbed her itching throat as she stared at the odd sight of the corporal on the corpse.

"Did you do that?"

Corporal Steel shrugged.

"I shot at him first when I fell. He was a straggler and he noticed me… apparently getting squished by a Gear isn't as fun as advertised."

He poked the grunt in the back of the head with his Lancer barrel, and Isolde realised that the creature was conscious and simply lying still under the corporal.

"Nice work… we'll just wait for the others and we can take you both back to the city."

In the meantime she searched the Locusts pockets around Damien, coming up with next to nothing. Her squad finally caught up with them and Isolde looked at them as if seeing them for the first time: they looked beat up, and Claire was supporting Alice as the slender girl struggled to walk on a bleeding leg. Adam's armour was dented from rocks, and his hair was standing straight up due to the rock dust. Megan looked as impeccable as ever, and Isolde reached for her gun to shoot the girl, hating her at that moment more than she'd ever hated anything else.

A hand stopped her as it closed around her pistol, and her eyes met with Damien's. He'd apparently been studying her, and when her squad arrived in such bad shape and without Harmony he'd deduced what had happened. Wordlessly she released her grip on the handle of the gun and he took her hand. She pulled away after a few moments, backing off to straighten and gesture at the strange sight before them.

"Turns out Corporal Steel here was able to capture an enemy. He's more useful than we thought."

Claire slung Alice over Megan, helping the sergeant and the boy of the squad to tie the Locust up and move the Corporal off his perch. A swift unceremonious kick to the head of the Locust sent it to unconsciousness and the squad all looked at each other, trying to figure out how to divvy up the weight of the Locust and the two injured Gears.

After a moments' consideration Isolde had the solution.

"Prescott, we'll put Steel on your back again. I'll relieve you when you get tired. Claire, you and I will carry the scum between us and Megan you help Alice."

Everyone nodded, not willing to argue, and the strange party moved off. Isolde was taking a chance that there were no enemies around: with such heavy burdens the group was vulnerable. However they managed to get back to the Centaur with no ambushes and no traps, and they slung the Locust onto the back and tied it there.

They all piled in after momentary confusion about who would take shotgun: no one wanted to step up and fill Harmony's spot. Adam finally sucked it up and sat up front with the sergeant, leaving Damien to be poked and teased by the two conscious girls in the back.

The sergeant was silent the whole trip back: everyone thought she was being pensive and thinking deep about her oldest friend, but it was more that Isolde wasn't a very confident driver and she was concentrating hard on not crashing and killing them all. She breathed an audible sigh of relief when they reached the first checkpoint outside the city walls, but that sigh turned into a growl as she realised there were squads of armed Gears waiting for them.

The sergeant popped out of the cab and held her hands up, and the others followed suit as best they could. A man in shiny new battle armour shouldered his way through the ranks and Isolde realised that it was the Chairman himself: he held a Lancer almost gingerly as he pointed it at them.

"Welcome back, kidnappers."


End file.
